From owner-freebsd-hackers Sat Jun 9 19:52:52 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from freebsd.netcom.com (freebsd.netcom.com [199.174.33.250]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 773AA37B401 for ; Sat, 9 Jun 2001 19:52:50 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from bugs@freebsd.netcom.com) Received: (from bugs@localhost) by freebsd.netcom.com (8.8.8+Sun/8.8.8) id VAA23587 for hackers@freebsd.org; Sat, 9 Jun 2001 21:52:49 -0500 (CDT) From: Mark Hittinger Message-Id: <200106100252.VAA23587@freebsd.netcom.com> Subject: re: Strange request: Reading RX-50 (aka DEC Rainbow 100) disks To: hackers@freebsd.org Date: Sat, 9 Jun 2001 21:52:49 -0500 (CDT) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL2] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > Has anybody done this before? Any pointers? I'm very familiar with the RX50 on the Rainbow. I wrote the "copy protected disk copier" for it in that bygone era. ARRRRR!! The Rainbow ran several operating systems, CPM, CPM/86, MSDOS 2, and MSDOS 3. The Rainbow had both a z80 cpu and an 8088 cpu with the lowest 2k ram shared between the z80 and the 8088. The z80 controlled the floppy drive via a WD 1793 chip. I'd actually recommend trying to use kermit to get the data out via the serial port first :-) There is a rainbow kermit out there. I remember being able to transfer files between the Rainbow and the IBM PC using a lower density single sided format - like 40 tracks. This was in MSDOS world only and not CPM. I'd bet there are utilities on simtel20 that would read a CPM format floppy in 40 track format. I formatted them on the IBM PC in low density mode and then wrote data to them on the Rainbow. There is also a version of DECNET for the Rainbow that works via the serial port. If you can find someone with a PDP-11 or a MicroVAX unix system somewhere you might be able to just dd them. I still have my Rainbow and I have to use an air blower to get rid of dust in order to get the floppies to even read at all anymore. My apple ][ floppies still read solid with no air blower. Good Luck! Mark Hittinger Earthlink bugs@freebsd.netcom.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message