HP 150 stiffies - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

11 May 1998

Tony Duell &lt;ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk&gt; wrote:
...
   My vague
recollection is that an "application master disk" is supposed
 to have a file that tells PAM about an application -- things like what  
 I've got the format of the installation file for the master disk - it's 
 in one of the manuals for writing your own applications. But I have no 
 idea quite what the installation procedure does with that informaition.  
I think I remember knowing it at one time, at least well enough to
fake it when I needed it once -- though whether that was through
reverse engineering the file format or looking at a co-worker's ISV
kit manual I can't recall.

...
  What about doing a plain sector copy on a PC or
something? The disk is a 
 standard double-density one so a PC controller should be able to read it. 
 Shouldn't be too hard to figure out what sectors are used and copy them over. 
Sydex has a shareware device driver that is supposed to let you use
HP150 stiffies directly on a PC-compatible.  I tried it a few months
ago on a non-classic (hmm, 7 years to go) Toshiba notebook but it was
not able to read the lone 150-formatted stiffy I had handy.  Whether
that is because of newfangled hardware, funky notebook hardware,
inability of the software to handle single-sided stiffies, or bad
vibes I don't know.  I am able to read the disk in a 9114B on my
Portable Plus though.

Hmm, maybe I'll try DISKCOPY on it tonight and see if that gets me
another stiffy that the 9114B can read.  Cheap thrills.

-Frank McConnell