awc@bu-cs.UUCP (Alex Cannon) (05/19/86)
Howdy, I'm a Software Support programmer on our IBM 3090 (we run a great home-grown system called VPS), and I recently took over PC support. A user came in and told me she wanted to get an IBM portable to do word processing on in Europe, and the salesman told her that no more portables were being manufactured with 4 1/4" drives, only with 3 1/2" floppies, and that she couldn't get a service contract on one of the older models, even if she found one. That sounds somewhat like bullshit to me; does anyone out there know what the story is? If she can get a word processing package on 3 1/2" disks, that'd probably be ok, but we'd still have the problem of transferring her (large) text files from our mainframe to a PC. The only reliable FTP we have is Kermit, and we only have 4 1/4" drives here. She doesn't want to shell out over a thousand bucks for a modem/com board either. Does anyone know about these new drives? Could we get one for my XT, and copy the files after I download them? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks, Alex Cannon Boston University
brown@nicmad.UUCP (05/20/86)
In article <641@bu-cs.UUCP> awc@bu-cs.UUCP (Alex Cannon) writes: > >Howdy, Hi there!!! >I'm a Software Support programmer on our IBM 3090 (we run a great home-grown >system called VPS), and I recently took over PC support. A user came in and >told me she wanted to get an IBM portable to do word processing on in >Europe, and the salesman told her that no more portables were being >manufactured with 4 1/4" drives, only with 3 1/2" floppies, and that she >couldn't get a service contract on one of the older models, even if she >found one. That sounds somewhat like bullshit to me; does anyone out there >know what the story is? > >If she can get a word processing package on 3 1/2" disks, that'd probably >be ok, but we'd still have the problem of transferring her (large) text >files from our mainframe to a PC. The only reliable FTP we have is Kermit, >and we only have 4 1/4" drives here. She doesn't want to shell out over >a thousand bucks for a modem/com board either. Does anyone know about these >new drives? Could we get one for my XT, and copy the files after I download >them? Any suggestions would be appreciated. First things first. They are 5 1/4" drives, not 4 1/4". With that out of the way, I will then describe the current system that I am using: IBM-PC/XT 640K on mother board Two 10 MB MicroScience hard drives E/F DTC hard drive controller Two TEAC 5 1/4" half-height floppies A/B Two TEAC 3 1/2" micro floppies C/D & G/H PC-DOS 3.20 I guess the above configuration would fit the bill. Yes, IBM 5 1/4" portables are no longer being distributed. Our local Computerland couldn't even get them to fill outstanding orders. I don't know about the service contract. There are still Compaq 5 1/4" portables out there, which is one of the reasons IBM quit portables (too much com- petition). Anyway, even if she did get one of the new 3 1/2" portable units, sho won't find Lotus 1-2-3 available yet, in the 3 1/2" format. The only way that she is going to get 1-2-3 ported to the portable is to use an un-copy protected version. From what I have read, the BIOS is different enough that it wouldn't even work anyway. So, yes you can make copies of 5 1/4" floppies to 3 1/2" floppies, (using somthing like I have above) but it wouldn't do you any good. Until Lotus releases the 3 1/2" version (they said they are), I suggest you borrow a Compaq portable with 5 1/4" floppies. The news isn't very good. But it will get better as time goes on. -- ihnp4------\ harvard-\ \ Mr. Video seismo!uwvax!nicmad!brown topaz-/ / decvax------/