30 May
2006
30 May
'06
4:36 p.m.
-----Original Message-----
On Behalf Of Zane H. Healy
Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2006 6:10 PM
At the same time, I'm looking into a setup such that the
general public can
go into the "Historical Resource Center" and transfer their
old media to
modern media. I invision this including 5 1/4" floppies, and 3 1/2"
floppies at a minimum. (I figure at least Commodore, Apple
and PC). While
this can be done with a combination of old and new systems,
it might be better
to do it with a modern PC and a Catweasel card.
I am currently working on just such
a beast. I have had it running using 3.5, 5.25, and 8" media, 3 floppy controllers
and 2 catweasels. Base unit was a Pentium 233MMX SBC and a 14 slot PICMG backplane running
Debian Linux and DOS 6.22.
Now, I'm trying to clean it up, upgrade the CPU and streamline the process. I have
over a thousand 8" disks here from all kinds of systems that I'd like to
inventory and make the contents available where possible.
I'm even trying to parse the file systems so the user can extract files from certain
formats. I'm starting with the Tandy/TRS-80 Model II line file systems (and there were
a few) such as TRSDOSII, Xenix (file system and tar), TRSDOS16, LS-DOS and several CP/M
formats.
Like it or not, I'm using ImageDisk as the standard to store and access file content.
It is much easier to parse than some of the other disk formats out there, and is quite
well defined.
Kelly
30 May
30 May
4:50 p.m.
I'm even trying to parse the file systems so the
user can extract files
from certain formats. I'm starting with the Tandy/TRS-80 Model II line
file systems (and there were a few) such as TRSDOSII, Xenix (file system
and tar), TRSDOS16, LS-DOS and several CP/M formats.
Like it or not, I'm using ImageDisk as the standard to store and access
file content. It is much easier to parse than some of the other disk
formats out there, and is quite well defined.
Kelly
Ideally I'd like to have it setup so a user can bring in a 3.5" or 5.25"
floppy, stick it in the drive, and use a simple interface to copy/extract
all the data to modern media. In the case of the old Home Computer formats
such as C-64 or Apple ][, it would be nice to offer the option to copy to a
disk image as well, that way they can access the files under an emulator.
I'm guessing that's the only way to access some of the data.
I'm not sure how practical this sort of thing is, but I know that there is
interest in having a system setup that can at least handle 5.25" MS-DOS
floppies.
Zane
8:41 p.m.
I'm even trying to parse the file systems so the
user can extract files from certain formats. I'm
starting with the Tandy/TRS-80 Model II line file systems (and there were a few) such as
TRSDOSII,
Xenix (file system and tar), TRSDOS16, LS-DOS and several CP/M formats.
Like it or not, I'm using ImageDisk as the standard to store and access file content.
It is much
easier to parse than some of the other disk formats out there, and is quite well defined.
Hi Kelly,
One of the things I plan to do "someday" is to put together some tools to
provide read/write
access to ImageDisk images at the file level - Hopefully using some kind of
"definition file" to
spec. how to decode the file system, so that support for new file systems can be easily
added
(at the very least - create a skeleton to provide a consistant user interface, and the
.IMD file
access, sector read/write and other manipulation functions).
Haven't had time lately to really get started, however if you (or anyone else) is
interested in
working together on such a project, I am more than willing to help.
Regards,
Dave
--
dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com Collector of vintage computing equipment:
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html
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