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.

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.

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?

Right now the port is in early testing, so I am not releasing any compiled binaries. There is always a risk of data loss with a tool like this, so please contact me directly if you want to beta test.

Command console

When you first start the program, you will be greeted with a Command Console. This is a unique feature of this port and is not present in the original TIP:

Before launching TIP, you will need to do some prep work. It is vitally important that you unmount the Zip cartridge prior to running TIP on it.

Unmounting is different than ejecting a cartridge. Once a Zip cartridge is unmounted, the icon will disappear from the Finder, but the cartridge will remain in the drive.

There is no way to unmount a cartridge without ejecting it in the Finder, but you may do it via the Command Console like this:

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

Once you have the Zip cartridge unmounted, you will need to tell TIP 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.

At the present, I am unable to find any documented MacOS APIs for automatically unmounting volumes associated with a SCSI ID. Future versions may simplify the process if I find out how to do this.

Got projects?

If you have consulting work, particular contract work pertaining to vintage computers or THREE.js, please hit me up via my GitHub account!

About the code

Portions of the original code have been re-written in C++ and adapted for compilation using Metrowerks CodeWarrior 8 Gold. 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 code to allow for easy cross referencing with the original code and to make it easy to port additional functionality in the future.

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