non-PC Floppy imaging

[Josh Dersch]

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
>
>