[G4] DVD Player 4.0 and using a floppy in OS9, OSX, on G4's , etc.

[SLarsonIH at aol.com]

First, a question. I just replaced the Apple CD/RW with a Pioneer 111D DVD/RW 
in my QS. I went to play a movie, and found out I have no DVD Player in 
10.3.9, presumably because I installed 10.3.9 with the CD drive in it. Is there a 
way to install the DVD Player software? I tried to find DVD Player 4.0 (that's 
what's on my MDD) on Apple's site to download with no success. I even reran 
the 10.3.9 updater, but it didn't install the player either. In 9 I could just 
find all the related files and copy them, but don't know if that is even 
possible in X. Help please.

If you want or need to use floppies in OS9, OSX, on G4's, and possibly G5's 
and Intel Macs, read on...

Some time ago, someone wanted to be able to take information on an older Mac 
or PC via floppies and move it to a non floppy Mac. Oh, and for the person 
that said there was no reason to use a floppy, if you have a Sony Mavica or 
Panasonic digital camera, they use floppies to store the pictures. Maybe they even 
wanted to install a floppy on the non floppy Mac. So, for that person and 
others who still want to use their floppies on G4's (Possibly G5's and maybe the 
new Intel Macs) in OS9 AND X, here's what I found out. Be warned, this may be a 
long post.

A few years back I bought a Panasonic digital camera that used a LS120 
SuperDisk drive to store the pictures you took. The drive uses 1.44 floppies as well 
as modified 1.44 disks that hold 120 megabytes. In the camera promotion, they 
gave the customer an LS120 to put into their desktop computer. When I bought 
my Wallstreet, I also bought VST's LS120 drive. So, since then I've 
transferred the pictures by taking the LS120 disks and popping them into the Wallstreet. 
I never really used the internal LS120 because of the one in my Wallstreet. 
That was then, and this is now.

I want to be able to use/install programs and data that is only on floppies 
in Mac, PC and Atari format. So I found the internal LS120 and put it where the 
Zip 250 drive was and checked it out. (set it to slave) Amazingly, in OSX 
10.3.9, the drive recognized a 120megabyte LS120 disk, a Mac and PC 1.44MB disk 
and a 720K Mac and PC disk. It won't recognize an 800K Mac disk though. Then I 
booted into OS9. Nothing was recognized in OS9, even after installing the VST 
drivers that came with the VST LS120 drive for my Wallstreet.

Next, I took a Firewire case I had laying around, I took the LS120 and set it 
to master and hooked it up inside the FW case. Basically it recognized all 
the same formats, but this time did so in OS9 as well. I did a quick search on 
eBay for LS120 drives and there are around 40 up for sale at this time, around 
$10. I noticed that most are out of PC laptops, so they are thin drives, and 
so I don't know about mounting issues. I haven't tried to run copy protected 
older floppy games via the drive so I don't know if that would be an issue. I 
also haven't tried formatting anything yet, but the selections come up in OS9. I 
did not see any way to format anything in OSX. So, at this point two ways to 
go are, 1 - get an LS120 drive and put it in a FW case, or 2 - put one in a 
Mac, move the data from the LS120 to a HD in OSX and access the data in OS9 if 
needed. I just had a thought. Would a regular floppy work? (Mac or PC)

STeve