In search of Apple computer that takes 3.5" disk

[MTPorcupine3]

Does anyone have one of those old-fashioned Apple computers that take a 3.5" disk? I have a book on one that I'd like to be able to access without re-writing the whole thing.
Merci d'avance.
Rich

[Lloyd Danforth]

I have a thing that reads 3.5 floppys that feeds into one of these little rectangular ports that I can't remember the name of at the present time.

[KBCraig]

There were 3.5" drives for the Apple ][e, ][c, and of course all Macintoshes until the iMac. Very different operating systems; which computer was your disk made for?

[Mike Barskey]

And of course there were 400KB, 800KB, and high density 1440KB 3.5" floppies. Higher capacity floppy drives could read lesser capacity disks, but not vice versa. Various Mac models came with the one of the different floppy drives (actually, if you go old enough, some Macs had two floppy drives).

Unfortunately, I do not have a Mac with a floppy that will help you - I have an original Mac 128, and it's in running condition, but I have no operating system disks, and certainly your book was made with more modern software than wouldn't even run on such an old Mac. Good luck!

[Lloyd Danforth]

Rich. If you van use the floppy reader with the usb connection let me know and I will get it to you.

[MTPorcupine3]

There were 3.5" drives for the Apple ][e, ][c, and of course all Macintoshes until the iMac. Very different operating systems; which computer was your disk made for?

It was made for the Mac Classic that I bought in '91...shortly before the new model came out, of course.

[MTPorcupine3]

One other idea, before I start typing: I do have a hard copy of the text in question on regular 8 1/2 X 11" paper. Is there not a way to scan it so that it can be used by a computer without typing? Can anyone help with that?

[Mike Barskey]

The Classic originally shipped with System 6.0.7 and can handle up to 7.5.5. The Classic II handled System 7.0.1 to 7.6.1. The Color Classic and Color Classic II each could handle System 7.1 to 7.6.1. All of these models came with 1.44MB floppy drives.

There is such a thing as Optical Character Recognition ("OCR"). You scan text and software converts it into actual editable text instead a picture of text. Such software comes with most models of scanner, and you can buy it separately. It works pretty well on very clean originals (typed text in a single block on a page - the more columns, graphics, and non-text items on the page, or the more angles the text is at or the more degraded the text appears (like a copy of a copy), the worse OCR works). You might be able to find services that can OCR scan for you - maybe Kinko's? How many pages is the document?

Edit: I think OCR scanning picks up the content of the text, but not the appears; for example, it might not get any bold or centering, but would get the text itself.

Edit 2: Here is some information on free OCR software.