allebrandi@inland.com (Tom Allebrandi) (11/27/90)
We have a piece of purchased test equipment that contains a PDP-11/73 running RT-11. The system uses 5-1/4" floppy disks for removable disk storage. The floppies themselves are standard PC/AT style - that is, Double Sided High Density. The system is captive; it boots RT-11 and then starts the application program. We have no way to get to RT-11. We would like to take data from this machine up to our VAX. The problem is that the only link this machine supports is a 1200 Baud no flow control printer port. Even worse, the way you talk to that port is to tell the software to use it and then print something! It would be nice if I could just take the floppies and stick them in a PC/AT. Of course, the floppies will be in an RT-11 file format.... Does anyone have a program that will read RT-11 format 5-1/4" disks on a PC/AT? I know that such a thing exists because I saw a NetNews article about it some time ago. (I don't remember who posted it :-() Please email reposnses. Thanks! --- Tom Tom Allebrandi | Mail guru - DECUS UUCP Development Team Inland Steel Research Labs | Internet: allebrandi@inland.com East Chicago, IN | UUCP: ...!uunet!inland!allebrandi 219 399 6306 | DECUServe: allebrandi BIX: ta2
jdudeck@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (John R. Dudeck) (11/29/90)
In an article allebrandi@inland.com (Tom Allebrandi) wrote: >Does anyone have a program that will read RT-11 format 5-1/4" disks >on a PC/AT? I know that such a thing exists because I saw a NetNews >article about it some time ago. (I don't remember who posted it :-() I was and still am interested in this problem, but haven't had time to write such a program. As far as I know, I have never heard of a program that runs on the AT that can read the RT11 file format. It is possible to read the sectors and to format them, but somebody needs to just write a file transfer program that knows about the RT11 layout. Someone else who responded (the one you are referring to, I think) was contemplating writing a program to do this. I don't know if he ever did. If so, I would love to get a copy. If your test equipment uses the RX50 format (SS 80 tracks), maybe you can boot a standard RT11 boot disk from a Micro-PDP11 system, instead of your special diskettes, and somehow go from there through the serial port with Kermit. Or maybe you can read your disks on a MicroPDP11. Also there is the Pro-350 which might read them (I don't know if the Pro and the Micro are compatible. I know I couldn't boot a Micro RT11 floppy in a Pro). -- John Dudeck "If it's Object Oriented then by jdudeck@Polyslo.CalPoly.Edu definition it's A Good Thing". ESL: 62013975 Tel: 805-545-9549 -- D. Stearns
j_prigot@wrglex.uucp (11/29/90)
In article <350.2752352d@inland.com>, allebrandi@inland.com (Tom Allebrandi) writes: > We have a piece of purchased test equipment that contains a PDP-11/73 > running RT-11. The system uses 5-1/4" floppy disks for removable disk > storage. The floppies themselves are standard PC/AT style - that is, > Double Sided High Density. > [Stuff deleted] > We would like to take data from this machine up to our VAX. The problem > is that the only link this machine supports is a 1200 Baud no flow > control printer port. Even worse, the way you talk to that port is to > tell the software to use it and then print something! > [Stuff deleted] If the idea is to get the data to your VAX, then what is the possiblility of using VMS EXCHANGE with an RX50 disk drive? Or am I missing something? -- Jonathan M. Prigot j_prigot@wrglex or ...!drilex!wrglex!j_prigot
churchill@decus.com.au (Jack Churchill) (12/01/90)
In article <2754ba41.c12@petunia.CalPoly.EDU>, jdudeck@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (John R. Dudeck) writes: > > > In an article allebrandi@inland.com (Tom Allebrandi) wrote: >>Does anyone have a program that will read RT-11 format 5-1/4" disks >>on a PC/AT? I know that such a thing exists because I saw a NetNews >>article about it some time ago. (I don't remember who posted it :-() > > I was and still am interested in this problem, but haven't had time to > write such a program. As far as I know, I have never heard of a program > that runs on the AT that can read the RT11 file format. It is possible > to read the sectors and to format them, but somebody needs to just write > a file transfer program that knows about the RT11 layout. > I wrote a Fortran program to read and write RT-11 5-1/4" floppies on a UNITY system (UNIX computer with an LSI-11 bus) over 5 years ago. It also had list and delete commands. Basically it emulated the PIP utility on a PDP-11. If I can find it, I will mail it to anyone interested (as far as I can remember it's not too long). I hope I had the good sense to keep a listing at least! I'll find out over the next few days. -- Jack N. Churchill | E-mail: CSIRO Division of Exploration Geoscience | churchill@decus.com.au Remote Sensing Group | Phone: +61 2 887 8884 PO Box 136 North Ryde NSW 2113 | Fax: +61 2 887 8909 Australia | Telex: AA25817