Subject: RE: HP storage formats on ss80 protocol disks

From: "Peter Brown" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Apr 21 17:16:01 2003

Hi All,

Thanks for the help with LIF formats and CS80 protocol.  I now have the bare 
bones of an application working.

Currently the application runs on a PC fitted with a NI GPIB board.

It reads LIF formatted hardrives (in my case one of two 9133's that I have) 
extracting the file catalog.  A file can then be selected from the catalog 
and its binary image written to the PC's hard drive.  This means that I can 
back-up the files on one of the 9133 drives before reformatting it :)

That's as far as I've got at the moment - it has taken rather longer than I 
had first hoped but seems to be pretty stable now.

I could write some more code to allow sets of files to be selected from the 
binary images stored on the PC and then written back to the CS80 protocol 
hard drive (either re-formatting the hard drive or appending the new files 
to the existing catalog).

This would allow easy file interchange (and back-up) for people with CS80 / 
LIF based computers.

Perhaps a database of binaries / files could be made available on the 
internet to download as required?

What would the copyright implications be if such a database were made 
available?

Would there be any interest from people with 9000 200 and 300 systems on the 
list?

If there is enough interest I will look doing the extra coding sooner rather 
than putting it on the pile of things that I 'really shoud do one day'.

Cheers

Peter Brown

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From: Joe <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue Apr 22 08:06:00 2003

Peter,

   I for one would be very interested in further work on the HP drive reader/writer. I have a lot of old drives around that I'd like to investgate and see what's on them but frequenty you have to have a system/CPU very similar to what they were written on in order to read them. Since that's not always possible your tool would be handy for taking a peek at what kind of files are on the drives before spending a lot of time finding the correct CPU and connecting it. For example I just found a HP-9133VX drive with BTL-200 on it. I want to reformat the drive (SS-80) and try to use it on a HP-85 but the BTL-200 is rare and may be worth saving. 

  Which NI card are you using? Can I get a copy of what you have so far?

   Joe

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From: "Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun Apr 27 19:05:01 2003

I heard from somebody who has a "fully loaded" System 34 and a 
"Decision Data 750 line per minute printer".
No CRTs.

If anybody is interested, let me know.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred        [email-masked]