I was cleaning out my garage and came upon a CD-R labeled "SCSI Copy of Atari format Syquest EZ-135 disk." That's a mouthful, I know.

Many years ago I used an Atari ST and wrote midi software (an editor for the Akai S900 sampler) that I thought was lost forever. I'm not sure if it was on that Syquest but I'm very curious to find out - if there's a way!

I know the Atari floppy format was basically MS-DOS - I used to transfer files (.txt and .mid mostly) between my Atari and a Mac back in the System 9 days.

I'm pretty sure I never had a CD-R connected to my Atari - it had to be a Mac. My guess is the Syquest drive was originally connected to my Atari's SCSI port to write the original EZ-135 disk. Then I must have attached the Syquest to my old Mac and done a "SCSI Copy" to a CD-R with some kind of backup utility of which I have no clue – it's just too many brain cells ago.

I'm not sure where I'd start trying to read this CD. My new 15" MacBook Air (Ventura 13.4.1) sees it - but doesn't know what to do with it. I get this alert: "The disk you attached was not readable by this computer." Disk Utility sees it as "Unititialized Disk." I don't have the Syquest drive or the original disk - just this "SCSI Copy." I'm guessing there's an OS9 emulator somewhere that might be a starting point. Any advice is welcome – even if it's "give up!" Thanks! PS - if you're wondering how I would ever run my Atari program now (assuming I can extract it!), there' an Atari emulator called "Hatari" for Macs that can possibly do the job.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 09/04/2023 04:26PM by reezekeys.

I ran into a few other older CD-Rs from my PPC days which couldn't be read and only now learned that support for HFS+ was dropped in Monterey or Ventura. I have an old Mac with Mojave which I'll try in a while – maybe I'll get lucky with that Atari disk!

Awesome! Do you still have the 900?
Good luck!

Yes I still have it! Haven't fired it up in a while though.

I was so proud of my S900 Editor! Programmed in GFA Basic, then compiled into a standalone app. I never uploaded it anywhere. The Atari was a fantastic platform for midi apps.

If you can't get access to a pre-OSX Mac, I'd post the question to a board in the Atari ST retro community. You'll probably have better luck there. (I don't know where you'd find that community, but if it was me I'd start at the Atari Age boards.)

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reezekeys
I ran into a few other older CD-Rs from my PPC days which couldn't be read and only now learned that support for HFS+ was dropped in Monterey or Ventura. I have an old Mac with Mojave which I'll try in a while – maybe I'll get lucky with that Atari disk!

Don’t know where you picked up that info but Monterey and Ventura can read and write HFS+ disks.

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PeterW
Don’t know where you picked up that info but Monterey and Ventura can read and write HFS+ disks.

I should have figured that. Thanks. My searching turned up this web page:

[talk.tidbits.com]

The second message begins with "They were probably formatted using the old HFS (“Mac OS Standard”) file system, which Apple dropped in macOS 10.15 (“Catalina”)."

Now I see he says "HFS", not "HFS+", so this is my fault! I totally forgot there was an older "HFS" and just misread.

Another file system format that used to be supported on OS X was UFS. Apple dropped support of that with OS X Lion.

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JoeH
Another file system format that used to be supported on OS X was UFS. Apple dropped support of that with OS X Lion.

This was a big problem for the UFO community.

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Will Collier
If you can't get access to a pre-OSX Mac, I'd post the question to a board in the Atari ST retro community. You'll probably have better luck there. (I don't know where you'd find that community, but if it was me I'd start at the Atari Age boards.)

Well I tried - maybe I give up too easily but I'm not gonna start trying to install Linux on my M2 MacBook Air (see thread linked below if you have two minutes to waste)! Nor am I going to look around for an old Atari. The world will have to suffer without my masterpiece of Atari ST programming – an app for an antique sampler no one uses, on a computer platform that became extinct 30 years ago!

[www.atari-forum.com]

If it was probably mastered on a Mac, I favor the HFS theory.

You could try this: [thejoelpatrol.github.io]

(At your own risk.)

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/04/2023 10:40PM by Tiangou.

I did post on an Atari board as suggested. Someone there suggested I try using Disk Utility to image the CD-R. It worked! I'm still a ways from making it mountable in my ST Emulator (Hatari, for which an Apple SIlicon native version exists!), but getting closer. I opened the .dmg in a hex editor, and by just looking at the ascii characters was able to see that a lot of the midi software I wrote in the early 1990s is on this disk. It's quite the nostalgia trip, looking at stuff you did 30 years ago!

Cool!!

using Disk Utility to image the CD-R

That’s a neat trick.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/05/2023 06:42PM by rich in distress.

To tie a bow on this - the experts at atari-forum.com got me going and I am now looking at my amateur software (and revisiting my original sequencing software, Dr. T's Omega II) after 30 years! What a trip.

Here's a screenshot from my Akai S900 editor. I never released this, and now is probably a little late!



I'll add that midi is working well. The latest version of Hatari (the ST emulator) is Apple Silicon native. On the Mac, I use Bidule - which gives me virtual midi ins & outs - to route midi to my plugin instruments from the emulated Atari. Timing accuracy and latency are more than acceptable.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/24/2023 05:23PM by reezekeys.