Different diskette formats (was: Wanted: MicroBee computer

From: Fred Cisin <cisin_at_xenosoft.com>
Date: Mon Oct 4 14:47:09 1999

I'm in a similar position to Don. As part of my XenoCopy work, I get
hundreds of diskettes from computers that I have never seen. I have to
rely on the names and/or descriptions provided by the people who send the
diskettes.

As such, I have received diskettes, (and implemented the diskette formats)
labelled as being from "Beehive Topper" and from "Microworld Microbee",
which are different formats.


Occasionally there are fairly obvious mistakes and confusions in the
machine names. For example, I will get people telling me that the
computer is an "ADM3A, but the disk drive box is a Morrow" due to lack of
understanding of even what the conmputer is.


One time I got some hand labelled diskettes and misread the labels. I
ended up briefly having a version of my program that purported to support
Groupil (should have been Goupil) and INW (should have been LNW). The
funny part was when two competitors also came out with Groupil and INW
(either from contact with the same customer, or more likely from copying
formats from my program). They also added in formats for two machines
that were ONE-OFFs that never entered production, where I know the
whereabouts of EVERY diskette, and which I had included in XenoCopy-PC for
the convenience of the owner of the only existing units.


BTW, Allison recently referred to "hundreds" of different formats. Our
estimate is abour 2500! XenoCopy-PC currently supports 400.

--
Fred Cisin                      cisin_at_xenosoft.com
XenoSoft                        http://www.xenosoft.com
2210 Sixth St.                  (510) 644-9366
Berkeley, CA 94710-2219
On Sun, 3 Oct 1999, Don Maslin wrote:
> On Mon, 4 Oct 1999, Olminkhof wrote:
> 
> > I'm confused. I thought they were the same.
> > What do you mean by Beehive?  If this is related to the Beehive section of
> > the Walnut Creek CDRom, then I see the file \beehive\text\member.txt has an
> > Australian address in it.
> 
> I have never seen either machine that I can recall.  It may be that I 
> am blinded by the name "Beehive" who built terminals way back when - 
> one of which was named the Microbee.  Also, the fact that MicroSolutions 
> Uniform lists a Beehive Microbee and also a Microbee and that Sydex 22Disk 
> lists a Beehive Microbee whose disk definitions do not match the formats 
> for the Microbee by Applied Technology has lead me to surmise that there 
> were two separate machines.
> 
> My reasoning was that Beehive had added some smarts and disk capability
> to their machine, and that the Australian machine was developed
> separately.  
> 
> 						 - don
>  
> > "Australian" Microbees are quite common here (because I'm in Sydney !) but
> > not in going condition. The consoles are easy but the power supply, disk
> > drives and software are difficult, probably because many were in schools
> > where they were networked. All I've seen were CP/M. I've never seen one with
> > basic but that doesn't mean they don't exist.
> > 
> > Hans

Received on Mon Oct 04 1999 - 14:47:09 BST