TIP for 68k and PowerPC Macintosh

This is the repository for a Macintosh port of Gibson Research Corp's Trouble in Paradise, a diagnostic and repair tool for Iomega Zip and Jaz Drives. A big thanks goes to Steve Gibson for the x86 source that made this project possible!

Compatibility

This tool is meant for Macintosh computers with a SCSI port, which range from the Macintosh Plus, released in 1986; through the "Beige" Power Macintosh G3, released in 1997.

Click here to read what works and what doesn't

It has been tested in on the following environments:

Computer	Memory	System	Drive	Firmware
Macintosh Plus	4MB	7.0.1	Zip Plus 100 Ext. SCSI	J.66
PowerBook 3400c	144MB	8.6	Zip 100 Ext. SCSI	E.08
Power Macintosh G3	256MB	9.2.1	Zip 100 Ext. SCSI	C.22
Power Macintosh G3	256MB	9.2.1	Zip 100 Int. SCSI	J.03

What will not work or is missing:

• USB connected Zip drives have been reported to not work.
• The functionality for operating with password or write protected disks is missing.
• The partition recovery feature has been removed, since it is meant for PC disks.

Disclaimer

This software is provided on as "as is" basis and the user assumes all risk of data loss. Although this software bears a similarity to the original by GRC, I may have introduced errors during the conversion process. Please do not reach out to GRC for support on this Macintosh port.

Where are the binaries?

Once they are ready, compiled binaries will be made available on the releases page for people who have signed up for beta testing in the discussion forum

There is always a risk of data loss with a tool like this, so please use it only on non-critical data if you decide to beta test.

How can you help?

You can help this project in one of the following ways:

• Star this project on GitHub to show your support!
• Sign up to beta testing in the discussion forum!
• Donate a 1 or 2GB Jaz cartridge for testing (I have a 2GB SCSI Jaz drive, but no cartridges!).
• Become a GitHub sponsor to help fund my work with this and other open-source projects!

Got work?

I am open to paid consulting work related to retro-computing or software for vintage Macs. If you have a project in mind, please hit me up via my GitHub account!

Unmounting volumes

To avoid data corruption, you must "unmount" the cartridge prior to starting a test with TIP!

There is no way to unmount a cartridge (without also ejecting it) in the Finder, but you can either:

1. Start TIP without a disk in the drive. TIP will recognize when Mac OS mounts newly inserted cartridges and will give you the choice to unmount it.
2. Use the command console to unmount a disk prior to starting TIP

Click here to learn how to use the Command Console

The Command Console shows up when you first start the program. This is a unique feature of this port and is not present in the original TIP:

Unmounting Volumes

A cartridge will show up in the Finder as an icon; MacOS calls this a "volume". To prevent data corruption, you have to "unmount" the volume prior to testing. When a volume is unmounted, the icon will disappear from the Finder, but the cartridge will remain in the drive. To unmount a drive:

• Type volumes to show a numbered list of all Mac volumes
• Type unmount followed by a volume's number to unmount it.

The unmount process will fail if you have any open files or applications in the volume; if this happens, close those files and try again.

Starting TIP

To start TIP, you will need to tell it which SCSI device to use:

• Type list to show a numbered list of all SCSI devices by SCSI ID.
• Type tip followed by a SCSI ID to run TIP on that device.

Future versions of this tool may eliminate the Command Console, if I can find the right way to automate all these steps in MacOS 😁

About the code

Portions of the original code have been re-written in C++ and adapted for compilation using Metrowerks CodeWarrior 8 Gold. The code is located in the mac-cpp-source directory.

Click here to learn more about the code

Native Macintosh SCSI Manager routines have been substituted for the Win32 ASPI routines and the UI has been re-created as closely as possible using QuickDraw routines.

Although the source code is materially different, I have maintained the layout and routines names of the original assembly code to allow for easy cross referencing and to make it easy to port additional functionality in the future.

Credits

• A big thanks goes to Steve Gibson for the source code that made this possible!
• Thank you to Stone Table Software for providing the tool I used to convert the Windows RTF docs into SimpleText...
• ...and to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine for allowing me to access it long after the website was shut down!
• Thank you to Thomas Tempelmann sharing his LaunchLib code which I used to open the documents

The Original TIP For Windows

The source code in the x86-asm-source directory is the original Windows source code as graciously provided to me by Steve Gibson. I am republishing his code in this repository with his permission.

Click here to see screenshots of the original TIP