15 Apr
2003
15 Apr
'03
9:26 a.m.
Hi folks,
I have an HP 9133 HDD that I'm going to have to re-format (for an HP based
measuring system).
The drive already has quite a lot of software on it that it seems a shame to
destroy.
I've stuck a bus analyser on the drive and had a quick look at the data
passing back and forth between a controller and it. I think that I can
control the drive OK (using cs80 protocol) from a PC with HPIB controller
card - i.e. I can identify the drive, check block sizes and pull data off or
write data to the drive.
It strikes me that an application that enables the information on a cs/80
drive to be pulled onto a PC, backed-up on another format (e.g. CD ROM) and
then written back to the cs80 drive would be useful - does such an
application already exist?
With the data clocks off the drive, I'm having a few problems working out
the actual format that HP use to record files on the disk.
It looks as though the first block on the disk (block 0) contains
information about the volume label, number of blocks available, number of
blocks allocated etc. (and I assume the length of the catalog).
The next few blocks seem to contain the catalog information itself - file
names, start locations lengths, file types etc.
Does anyone have access to details of the format that HP use to store files
on cs80 protocol disks/tapes?
(I already have a document 'cs/80 instruction set' dated March 1983 that has
proved invaluable in understanding the messages between the controller and
disk drive.)
Any help much appreciated.
Cheers
Peter Brown
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15 Apr
15 Apr
10:46 a.m.
With the data clocks off the drive, I'm having a
few problems working out
the actual format that HP use to record files on the disk.
It looks as though the first block on the disk (block 0) contains
information about the volume label, number of blocks available, number of
blocks allocated etc. (and I assume the length of the catalog).
The next few blocks seem to contain the catalog information itself - file
names, start locations lengths, file types etc.
Does anyone have access to details of the format that HP use to store files
on cs80 protocol disks/tapes?
THis sounds very much like LIF (Logical Interchange Format). It's
documented (mostly) in the back of the manual for the HP71 HPIL module
(of all places). All blocks are 256 bytes long.
Block 0 is the volume label/descriptor block
Bytes
0-1 LIF ID (0x80, 0)
2-7 Volume lablel, ASCII, padded with spaces
8-11 Directory start block number, MSB first
12-13 System 3000 compatibility (0x10, 0)
14-15 zeros
16-19 Directory length (in blocks, MSB first)
20-21 Version (normally 0 1)
22-23 zeros
24-27 Tracks per surface
28-31 Number of surfaces
32-35 Records per track
36-41 Date and Time intialised (year, month, day, hour, minute, second in BCD)
42-255 zeros
Block 1 is all zeros
Each directoy block (the directory normally starts in block 2, BTW)
contains 8 directory entries, each 32 bytes long. Each entry describes a
file. Files must be contiguous, and the directory entries must appear in
the 'right order' -- that's to say they describe the files (and unused
space) in the order it appears on the disk.
A directory entry contains ;
Bytes
0-9 Filename, ASCII padded with spaces
10-11 Filetype (binary)
12-15 File starting block, MSB first
16-19 File length in blocks, MSB first
20-25 Date and Time created (see above for format)
26-27 Volume flag/number (0x80 1)
28-31 File type specific bytes (often the exact file length, record size,
protection, etc is put here. File lengths may not be in bytes!)
The filetype is a 16 bit number. The important ones to recognise are
0 0 Deleted file (empty space on the disk)
0xFF 0xFF End of directory
0 1 Text file (note, this is a somewhat odd format, it's not a
simple stream of ASCII characters).
Others will be OS-specific. I know them for the calculators, but that's
no help to you.
You may want to look at my 'LIF utilites for Linux', available from the
HPCC web site. Although they won't do what you want (they're written for
the 9114 floppy disks used on the calculators, and the parameters of this
disk type are hard-coded in some of the programs), you might get some
useful hints from the source code, or you might just want to laugh at my
terrible C.
-tony
12:38 p.m.
Peter,
Are you dealing with SS80 or CS80? The title says SS-80 but the text says CS-80.
Which model 9133 are you using? Do you know what kind of system it was previously used
on?
Bob Shannon, Steve Robertson and a couple of others have done a LOT of work figuring
out the CS-80 protocall so that they can write drivers for use with the HP 1000.
Apparently there's a lot more to it than what's shown in the instruction manual.
FYI at one time HP made a kit that had a 8 bit ISA HP-IB card along with software and
docs to let you use one of the HP drives on a PC. I used to have one but don't
remember the exact name or model. I don't know if it was capable of reading HP data
from a drive or not but it's a possibility.
With the data clocks off the drive, I'm having a
few problems working out
the actual format that HP use to record files on the disk.
If the drive came from a 9000 200 computer, it could be LIF or HFS. HP used both. To
make matter worse there are a LOT of different LIF formats. I used to have a document from
HP that described some of the different LIF formats that were used just on their
instruments and there were about two dozen different formats as I recall. And that did not
include the formats used on the various computers!
Joe
At 09:23 PM 4/15/03 +0000, you wrote:
>Hi folks,
>
>I have an HP 9133 HDD that I'm going to have to re-format (for an HP based
>measuring system).
>
>The drive already has quite a lot of software on it that it seems a shame to
>destroy.
>
>I've stuck a bus analyser on the drive and had a quick look at the data
>passing back and forth between a controller and it. I think that I can
>control the drive OK (using cs80 protocol) from a PC with HPIB controller
>card - i.e. I can identify the drive, check block sizes and pull data off or
>write data to the drive.
>
>It strikes me that an application that enables the information on a cs/80
>drive to be pulled onto a PC, backed-up on another format (e.g. CD ROM) and
>then written back to the cs80 drive would be useful - does such an
>application already exist?
>
With the data clocks off the drive, I'm having a
few problems working out
the actual format that HP use to record files on the disk.
>
>It looks as though the first block on the disk (block 0) contains
>information about the volume label, number of blocks available, number of
>blocks allocated etc. (and I assume the length of the catalog).
>
>The next few blocks seem to contain the catalog information itself - file
>names, start locations lengths, file types etc.
>
>Does anyone have access to details of the format that HP use to store files
>on cs80 protocol disks/tapes?
>
>(I already have a document 'cs/80 instruction set' dated March 1983 that has
>proved invaluable in understanding the messages between the controller and
>disk drive.)
>
>Any help much appreciated.
>
>Cheers
>
>Peter Brown
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>Stay in touch with absent friends - get MSN Messenger
>http://www.msn.co.uk/messenger
1:28 p.m.
Joe wrote:
Peter,
...snip...snip...snip...
FYI at one time HP made a kit that had a 8 bit ISA
HP-IB card along with software and docs to let you use one of the HP drives on a PC. I
used to have one but don't remember the exact name or model. I don't know if it
was capable of reading HP data from a drive or not but it's a possibility.
HP 88500A is the one I have. Allows you to use both HPIB tape drives and
disk drives
on your PC.... The package included an interface card HP88500A,
one-meter HPIB cable
(8120-4554), a manual set: 88500-90011, 88500-90005, and 88500-90010, and a
software disk (5.25") 88500-10100... This package formatted the drives
for use with DOS,
so that the partitions on the drives were DOS partitions. I didn't see
anything in the manual
about accessing LIF (or any other non-DOS file system) with this product...
Bill McDermith
7922
days inactive
7922
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