5 Jan
2018
5 Jan
'18
12:08 p.m.
On Fri, Jan 5, 2018 at 11:52 AM, Guy Sotomayor via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Hi,
I now have a number of uCode diskettes for my IBM 4331. I would somehow
like to image them so:
a) I have backups in case the floppies themselves go bad
b) be able to investigate their contents in case I have to ?merge? the
contents of multiple floppies to
make a single good one
These are all 8? diskettes.
The complicating factors in all of this are:
a) any text (e.g. strings) are going to be in EBCDIC rather than ASCII
b) each uCode diskette was presumably serialized to the CPU it was for
c) not sure what the ?on-disk? structure looks like
d) the only 8? diskette drives that I have are in IBM (non-PC) equipment
Any ideas/comments would be welcome.
As far as backing up the floppies, I used ImageDisk with an 8" Shugart 850
hooked up to a PC to image and duplicate the microcode floppies for the
43xx machines we have at the museum. It works quite well. Obviously this
would require you to pick up a "new" 8" drive (I've no experience with
IBM
8" drives, but I wager they're not going to "just work" with a PC
FDC.)
The IMD tools come with an image viewer that can translate EBCDIC, though
you'll probably want something more advanced to actually modify/splice
things.
- Josh
Thanks.
TTFN - Guy