[OT] Re: old Mac SCIS (was: Once upon a time, I loved SCSI.)

[Bill McGonigle]

On Nov 27, 2005, at 23:32, Benjamin Scott wrote:

>   I encountered some problems *way* back in the dawn of my computer 
> usage, trying to use a generic SCSI hard disk in a Macintosh at the 
> school.  It didn't "just work".  Apparently there is/was some special 
> "signature" or something that needs to be written to the disk before 
> the Mac software will deign to use it.  The local Apple shop needed to 
> be consulted.  They lectured us about non-Apple-approved hardware.  
> Their Apple-brand disk worked on the first try.  It just cost 
> significantly more.

Ah, yes, good point.  The disk formatting utility that came with the OS 
insisted on seeing an "APPLE" string in the firmware tag.  There was a 
flag provided by/for the developers to turn that off, but it wasn't a 
GUI-visible option.  Thus all the 3rd-party hard drives sold by vendors 
'for Mac' came with a formatting utility.

And you're right - local Apple shops that I visited were uniformly 
staffed by stuck-up dopes.  Hence the mail order place I worked did 
quite a business....

-Bill

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