A lot of people have been asking me how to transfer the contents of
HP Series 80 floppies to a modern machine (and vice versa, of course).
Up till now I have been using my Integral PC to upload binary images of the
Series 80 floppies. The reason I prefer the images to the files created
by LIFUTIL, is that the image can be copied back to a new floppy
without dealing with the filename conversions, restoring the diskette
volume name, etc.
The problem with this approach is that only people with Integral PCs
(or other HP-UX systems with HP-IB interfaces) may use this path [1],
plus that I need to unpack and fiddle with the Integral PC every time
I need to make a copy. Moreover, getting the stuff *off* the IPC is
a pain because I only have the HP-IB interface.
Anyway, while reading the old PCC Computer Journal issues, I came
across a very interesting article by Pete Goffinet on how to use the HP
binary utility "r" which is provided with the HP-86/87 Demo Disc.
"r" is a binary program that contains two commands, RSECTOR for reading
arbitrary sectors of an HP-IB mass storage device, and WSECTOR for
writing them!
I have written a pair of programs (one for the HP-87 and another for
my Unix box) that allow entire images to be uploaded using an HP-87
with a serial interface.
Writing a program to download images is also trivial. Do note that
the programs I have written are unbelievably slooooow. If anybody
can come up with some sort of speedup, pls let me know.
Also, "r" works only on the HP-86/87, so the procedure will *not*
work with an HP-85 (or HP-83). If anybody has an equivalent binary
program for the HP-85, pls send it along.
For more info read the article "Transferring diskette images from an
HP-86/7 to a PC via a serial connection" at
http://www.series80.org/Articles/xfer.html
The HP-86/87 Demo Disc is also available at:
http://www.series80.org/Programs/DEMO87/index.html
(I'll also post a utility for listings and unbundling LIF floppies
on a Unix box in the next couple of days).
**vp
[1] If you use Linux, note, that there is a comprehensive package
for reading LIF floppies, called lifutils, written by Tony Duell.
Unfortunately it does not run under OpenBSD which is the system
I am using.
Received on Wed Jul 14 2004 - 05:11:16 BST