[Duo2400] How to get files on/off this thing?

[Robert R. Daniel]

Tom,

The Duo was originally conceived as the light and
portable part of a two-part system, the other part
being a dock.  The duo itself cannot communicate
with other computers without some additional hardware.
You may have a modem, and if that's the case, you
can upload and download over a dial-up service.
(Just one word:  .......S...L...O...W.....)

Other options are: 

-a duo dock (you'll pay about $30-50 and have to buy a
   monitor).  It offers a number of ways of connecting,
   ethernet and scsi being the two fastest.  The duo
   dock also has a built-in floppy drive. For ethernet,
   you'll need either an ethernet Nubus card or a special
   adapter (AAUI I believe is how it is called)
-an Apple minidock, which offers a number of ports
   (serial, scsi [hdi-30], ethernet) ($40 to $100+)
-a smaller "floppy dock" adapter and a PowerBook
   floppy drive ($50 to $100 for both)
-a non-Apple SCSIdock and an SCSI device (cd-rom or
    Zip drive) ($60 to $120+ for dock, cable and device)
-a non-Apple Ethernet dock (small adapter with a slow
    ethernet connection)

You can find specs for most of this equipment here:

http://www.info.apple.com/support/applespec.legacy/powerbook.html

You can also consult the Apple Knowledgebase to learn
more about the Duos.  Or you can go straight to the downloadable
manuals:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=50022

You could also try to find someone with a dock of some
sort who would be willing to load software for you.

My advice would be for you to get some sort
of dock.  Frankly, I find that a Zip drive and SCSI
minidock are the best combination.  The only problem is
that the zip is not bootable.  An Apple floppy is
bootable (if you have the minimal OS on floppy disk),
but a floppy drive is not very good for loading big
software programs.  So if you really want to load
new software on the PB 280, you will probably want
a duo dock and either an scsi cdrw drive or an scsi
Zip drive.  (Mac OS 7.6 can read a PC floppy or PC
Zip disk.)

Take some time to digest this information, go to
eBay to follow a few auctions of Duo docks and cables.
Then figure out how much more you want to spend and
what equipment you think it will take to do what you
want.

Hope this helps.

Robert










on 2/23/03 19:28, duolist at guardcolumn.mailshell.com at
duolist at guardcolumn.mailshell.com wrote:

> Hello all,
> 
> I'm now the proud owner of a duo 280c, thanks to ebay.
> The thing does not have a floppy drive, cdrom, or any
> sort of dock.  It does have some sort of internal
> modem, but I don't know how to use that.  OS is 7.6.
> 
> I would like to hook it up to my pc and load software
> onto it somehow.
> 
> Does anybody have any experience connecting a
> powerbook 280c to a desktop pc?
> 
> Any and all help is appreciated!
> 
> Thanks,
> -Tom