Archiving CP/M 2.2 Source Code Programs to a PC (Fat or NTFS media)

[Fred Cisin]

On Fri, 15 Jan 2016, Robo58 wrote:
> I'm a little rusty on the older PC's.  So when you say that 386 to 
> PIII's could read an 8" floppy, would those PC's have SD floppy 
> controllers?

Some (such as 37c65 based FDCs) do, some don't.  Dave Dunfield made a test 
program, to help identify them.

If the FDC can't do FM (SD), then either you need to use a different one, 
or a flux transition product, such as CatWeasel.

> Assume that I can get an old PC and connect it up how would an "image a 
> disk" program work?  Does it have knowledge of the CP/M files system and 
> can read the directory and grab the files?  Would the program also be 
> able to write to the PC's file system to complete the archive?

No, it does not know the file system.
Instead, THAT part of the process is consists of copying all of the 
sectors of the disk to a file.

> What "image a disk" programs would suggest?
ImageDisk, but others may have different preferences.

My personal preference is to use a program that DOES know the file system, 
and transfers FILES.  Such as XenoCopy (no longer available) or 22Disk.  I 
don't think that Uniform supported any 8" or HD formats.
But, those are set for specific formats (selected from a menu), and won't 
help for a format that doesn't have the same parameters as any that they 
include.
STAT DSK:   (run on the CP/M system) will give you some of the parameters 
that you need.

But, if you use a disk imaging program, you may be able to find something 
that can work with the file system, working from the image file, or write 
your own.


Another alternative is, of course, to do serial port transfers.  I prefer 
XMODEM, but some folk like Kermit.


--
Grumpy Ol' Fred     		cisin at xenosoft.com