lee@cadnetix.COM (Lee Fife) (03/08/89)
Hi All:
I've got one of those famous no-information net
problems.
We have a 3.5" disk written on a Tandy laptop
and we need to get this information on to an IBM PC.
The PC has a 3.5" high density floppy drive which fails
to read the tandy disk. That's all I know.
Any Ideas? Anybody know about communications
programs we could use to transfer the info via a modem?
Lee Fife Internet: lee@cadnetix.com
Cadnetix Corp. UUCP: ..!{uunet,boulder}!cadnetix!lee
5775 Flatiron Pkwy.
Boulder, CO 80301ehr@ecsvax.UUCP (Ernest H. Robl) (03/09/89)
In article <6967@cadnetix.COM>, lee@cadnetix.COM (Lee Fife) writes: [introductory comments deleted] > We have a 3.5" disk written on a Tandy laptop > and we need to get this information on to an IBM PC. > The PC has a 3.5" high density floppy drive which fails > to read the tandy disk. That's all I know. > Any Ideas? Anybody know about communications > programs we could use to transfer the info via a modem? > Lee Fife Internet: lee@cadnetix.com > Cadnetix Corp. UUCP: ..!{uunet,boulder}!cadnetix!lee > 5775 Flatiron Pkwy. > Boulder, CO 80301 The 3.5" portable disc drive for the Tandy laptops uses a non-standard format. There are (as far as I know) two versions of the portable disc drive. The original version stored 100K bytes per disc; the new version stores 200K bytes, and can read the discs produced by the older drive but cannot write to them. These drives communicate with the laptops through their SERIAL port. There's no real DOS, only a rudimentary file system for moving files between the disc and the laptop's RAM file system. The easiest method for getting data from one of these discs into an MS-DOS (or any other) machine is to find someone with a Tandy laptop and the appropriate portable drive (remember only version 2 of the drive can read discs from both version 1 an 2), reload the data into the laptop's RAM, then upload it through the serial port to the MS-DOS machine. Hope this helps. (Despite their limitations, the laptop/portable disc drive combination is a useful one that I've taken on a number of trips and done a good bit of writing with. For now, I'll probably continue to use it on some trips despite now having a portable Zenith MS-DOS machine.) -- Ernest -- My opinions are my own and probably not IBM-compatible.--ehr Ernest H. Robl (ehr@ecsvax) (919) 684-6269 w; (919) 286-3845 h Systems Specialist (Tandem System Manager), Library Systems, 027 Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham, NC 27706 U.S.A.
rsmith@vms.macc.wisc.edu (Rusty Smith, MACC) (03/09/89)
>> We have a 3.5" disk written on a Tandy laptop >> and we need to get this information on to an IBM PC. >> The PC has a 3.5" high density floppy drive which fails >> to read the tandy disk. That's all I know. >> Any Ideas? Anybody know about communications Take the laptop and load the file from the floppy into it. Upload it to the p.c. through the serial port with a null modem cable. I do this with my model 100 all the time. I use Procomm on the p.c. with the transfer mode as ASCII. It allows for changing the CR to CR/LF. The Tandy uses only a Carriage Return. Flow control is Xon/Xoff so the cable only needs pins 2-3, 3-2, 7-7. Hope this helps. Rusty Smith Internet: rsmith@vms.macc.wisc.edu MACC Data Communications Bitnet: rsmith@wiscmacc (608) 263-6307 Univ. of Wisconsin @ Madison