18 Dec
2006
18 Dec
'06
8:10 p.m.
At 02:04 PM 12/18/2006, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 18 Dec 2006 at 11:41, Kevin Handy wrote:
If you've got a real PDP-8, there's a program I wrote called WPFLOP
that will convert those WPS-8 floppies to ASCII files. The disk layout
isn't bizarre given that the floppies have 128 byte sectors; the layout
allows you to pack 256 12-bit words into a single logical sector. My
byte-mode floppy handlers for OS/8 use this convention, as does
COS-310. OS/8 uses "12 bit mode" on the RX01, storing a single OS/8
block across four disk sectors, wasting a bunch of potential disk capacity.
Finding copies of these programs may be interesting. ;-)
-Rick
If you wanted to convert from WPS-8 to
WordPerfect, then I
could offer my code at http://srv.net/~kth .
I think that the internal format is "similiar" to Word-11, but
Word-11 didn't pack 3 characters into 2 12-bit words.
you might be able to use it as a basis for understanding the
format and writing your own conversion program, but
reverse engineering would still be required.
We must be looking at different versions of WPS 8. The version that
I have (on RX01 diskettes) packs 4 characters into 2 12-bit words,
but the disk storage layout is a bit bizarre (3 physical sectors with
data interleaved to produce a single logical sector) and there are
numerous "escape" codes for switching to upper/lower case, bold,
underline, ruler, etc.