Suppose I want to bring my PB 190's OS up from 7.5.3 to 8.1. Personally I think this would be nice, which is why this thread is intriguing me. The 190 has no CD-ROM capability, but I do happen to have a desktop Mac 7200/120 that's running on OS 8.1, *does* have a CD-ROM drive, and on top of that, I have both the OS 8.1 CD *and* an Apple LaserWriter attached to the 7200.
Then you are in good shape. The 190 will run OS 8 with no problems. 8.1 is as high as you can go, though. Apple removed support for 68k Macs (your 190 has a 68040-based microprocessor, hence the term "68k") in OS 8.5 and later.
You mean all I have to do is unplug the laser printer and, for the duration of this exercise, "replace" it with the PB? It's this easy?! Really??
Yep, really. But trust me, it's also mind-bogglingly slow.
And, is it also possible to use this hookup to, say, transfer all the other data on my PB to the 7200 for purposes of "cleaning up" the PB's hard drive (say, an erase/reformat/disk doctoring/optimize of the disk prior to the OS 8.1 upgrade), doing the upgrade itself and then transferring the data all back to the PB?
Yep, that's also possible. But don't get ahead of yourself. If you delete, erase, or remove the system folder on your 190, things get a whole lot more complicated. You need a working system folder on the 190 in order to connect to the network. It _is_ possible to start from a floppy disk (see the archives for this info) with all the necessary AppleTalk and AppleShare bits on it, but it's not fun and makes life difficult.
I'd suggest this: Once you've backed up all your data (and any unrecoverable programs), run Disk Doctor, but _DON'T_ reformat or erase your disk, and leave the system folder in place. (Dan K. wrote a good guide to setting up a floppy disk that will do this. You can see it in the archive at <http://mail.maclaunch.com/lists/powerbooks/Message/24163.html>)
Also, if you've got a hard drive larger than about 250 MB or so, this isn't something you want to do with the printer port network. It takes about a minute per megabyte, in my experience, to transfer data across this type of network. If you've got 500 MB, that's a long time... Transferring files this way is best done with SCSI Disk Mode.
You'll need to do it "normally" as the OS 8.1 CD doesn't have all the bits and pieces to enable file sharing. Just start up the 7200 as normal, and put the CD in just like you would any other CD.You're certainly making it sound possible, anyway. Wow! So after I have the laser printer and the PB trade places, when I boot up the 7200, should I do it "normally" or from the OS 8.1 CD?
Uh, why is this, and can I reset the PB back to its sleep settings when this is all finished? I keep the PB set to go to sleep after an interval of non-activity, for reasons of battery preservation when I go out with it (indoors I use the plug on the wall, though, which I assume I'd be doing here). The 7200 is always fully awake unless I deliberately put it to sleep or shut it down.
You should set both to never go to sleep so that neither Mac will decide halfway through the Mac OS installation that it's time to go to sleep and cut off the install. That's never fun... Once the install is complete, you can set up whatever sleep preferences you like. All you're doing here is taking a precaution to make sure the install doesn't fail.
Hmmm. Well, since I already have the 7200 connected to the laser printer, would I have to do this for the 7200, or just for the PB if I switched them?
You'd probably have to do this for the 7200 as well. Is your laser printer one that can work on a network (i.e. a LaserWriter IIf or something) or is it serial-only?
Regardless, it's a good idea to check the AppleTalk settings and make sure that it's turned on and set to the correct port.
I think the rest of this sounds straightforward enough. Having to use the Chooser and AppleShare on the PB to do this makes sense to me because I've never hooked it up to a printer or another Mac before, so naturally I'd have to set this up.
There's a little more to it than that. The Chooser lets you pick what printer you want to use, but it _also_ (and independently of printer functions) lets you connect to networked Macs and other servers. So you'd have to do this, even if you had already picked a printer for the 190...
The only question I have here would be: < If you have Mac OS 8 or later on the desktop, Get Info on the Mac OS CD> -- I do, so why is this?
I was just being thorough. I was mistaken, though. With Mac OS 8, you still have to pick "Sharing" from the File menu. This step specifies who can connect to your disk and who cannot (it uses the list of people in the Users & Groups control panel under system 7.x or the Users & Groups tab of the File Sharing control panel for later OS versions). Since the "owner" always can access his/her own disks, you can ignore this step. It's really only in case you are hooked into a larger network (like at a school).
Last question: If I do this upgrade, will my PB still have the appropriate PB control panels etc., or is OS 8.1 intended only for desktop Macs?
It should, yes. If you use the printer port networking setup, then installing the Mac OS on your 190 is just like using a CD-ROM to install it (only much much slower).
Thanks!
Hey, no problem. If everyone can excuse my verbosity, then that would also be good... ;-)
Let me know if you guys think this is useful info, and I'll add a page detailing all this to my website for ease of reference in the future.
Peace, Drew
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