[deanmorgan]

Hi Guys, I am a bit if a beginner here and have a problem with my old DRS300 ICL dos based system. I am in the middle of replacing this with a pc system but unfortunately in the midst of changing the DRS300 has packed up.

When I say packed up I mean one of the drives.

I have already sent the hard drive (a miniscribe 8425 mfm) for data recovery but to no avail. They have said that it was corrupted and had bad media. This drive held the boot up and operating system. The other drive which hold the data in the DRS300 is ok but i cannot access the info to do anything with it. I can access the files using a floppy disc that has a type command in it but can only view the info.

Is there any way of interfacing a pc with this type of miniscribe drive to access the files and tranfer the data to a word or excel so I can at least print the data and have hard copies. All the files held on the drive are text files.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[JohnWill]

You'll need to round up an old system that has an ISA bus slot, since I've never seen an MFM/RLL controller for PCI. In addition, you need to know the configuration in the BIOS for the cylinders/heads/sectors per track, since they vary for individual drives.

Since you have floppy access, let's consider plan B.

You can use a serial port transfer application on the floppy to access the files required, and transfer them using serial communications. One that I have used in the past is ZIP221, a lightweight DOS based serial port transfer package.

Depending on the amount of data, you could also copy them a few at a time to a floppy and move them over that way.

 

[deanmorgan]

Hello John,

Thanks for your prompt reply. Not being technical I am not sure whether I can do what your saying.

The only access I have to the files is by typing A:type (file name).bom. This will then display the files contents on screen.

However I must have a particular floppy in the drive to be able to type the TYPE command. The problem I have is that I do not know how to copy any of the floppy contents onto my good f: so I can then use a different floppy to copy onto.

The floppy consists of 1 file named DRIUTILS.BLD. It is made up of several .CMD lines ie...STOP, TYPE, CHKDSK, PRINTMGR and various others.

Am I correct in saying that if I could copy the contents of this file onto my good F: I could then copy my data onto new floppys ?

Sorry for sounding a bit stupid but I am a bit over my head here at the moment.

 

[JohnWill]

If you boot with an MS-DOS floppy with minimal support, you should have about 1mb of free space on a 1.44mb floppy.

When you boot the MS-DOS floppy, the hard disk should appear as C: or D:, depending on the exact configuration. In any case, let's assume C: for now.

If you type the following line, you can copy a file from the hard disk to the floppy.

COPY C:\(file name).bom A:\

this will copy that file to the floppy. You can copy as many as will fit, then remove them on the new system, erase them from the floppy, and do it again.

Obviously, I don't know how many you have, which is why I suggested the serial transfer utility.

 

[deanmorgan]

Thanks John I will give it a go. We have quite a lot (approx 1300 files) but I will jeust get someone to sit a punch the info in. I will see how it goes.

 

[JohnWill]

Like I said, a serial or parallel port transfer application might be quicker.

 

[deanmorgan]

Well I think I may have got somewhere !! at last.

Have found a command PIP that will effectively copy the file to a dot matrix printer and print the file.

Have trie the same command PIP to send it to a PC using the Hyperlink facility and it works but unfortunately is printing incorrect text format. Not sure if this is something to do with baud rates etc.

Have also managed to copy our BOM files to floppys so hopefully I can now open these on a standard pc.

The main stock file however is 17 meg and I obviosuly cannot transfer via floppys. Someone has mentioned that you can use a command BACKUP which will stitch the files together onto however many floppyes are required. The you use RESTOE to stitch them back together on a PC. Am going to look into this one now.

 

[deanmorgan]

p.s. For information have been told that the system is not MS-DOS but CPM C-DOS. Does not mean to much to me....

 

[JohnWill]

WOW! CP/M? Man, that system is old!

Have you looked at Kermit? It has pretty decent file transfer capability, and would make this job less painful. I used this once years ago when I had a CP/M system that I wanted to move stuff from. It comes in flavors for all machines, CP/M Kermit, MS-DOS Kermit, and Windows Kermit.

 

[deanmorgan]

Thanks John, will have a look.

Yes it is old and it is a flaming nuisance................

Hoping I will be able get some luck with the transfer tomorrow. Have somebody coming round tomorrow to give me some guidance.... and god do I need it...

 

[JohnWill]

Old systems are always a challenge, time marches on.

 

[deanmorgan]

Don't seem to have made any breakthrough. I have been able to send the data to a dot matrix using a PIP PRN:=(File name). This works fine.

Have used both the hyper terminal and kermit and then sent the data using the same command but unfortunately it seems to communicate but prints on screen complete nonsense. I am guessing the file transfer set up has to be a particular type and I have no idea what it should be set as.

Starting to struggle now....

 

[JohnWill]

You want binary files, that will get you everything in the files.

 

[deanmorgan]

Have just managed to get a files data across. The data rates had to be set to 75...

Now that i have the text captured I need to find a program to be able to open it and use. Have tried notepad but to no avail. At least i seem to be getting somewhere ...very slowly.....

 

[deanmorgan]

Unfortunately it appears that I can not send a file to my laptop. All I can do is either copy or print the contents of the file.

This although not 100% would help. Only problem now is that it saves the file on the pc as a log file but I cann ot open it with any program.

 

[deanmorgan]

Have cracked it...... Well almost. Have output the data and got them into notebook.

Have now just got to get my main stock file over. Have amaged that also but seems to be nowehere near as much info as there should be. Apparently there may be pointers attached within the file.

Lokks like not much hope with this one but will see.

 

[deanmorgan]

Well.... Thought I would give you an update as to where i have got to...

Have got all my bill of materials onto my pc using the kermit program.

Can now access all the text files and cut and paste as desired.....

Still have a problem with my main stock file though. Can copy data across as I did with the BOM's but unfortunately displays the file in some weird format.

There is no file structure. This would be ok as I know somebody that can write a small program to re-assemble the list into something more readable.

Problem is that the whole file does not display. I have been told that there is a possibility that because the file is larger than the rest that there may be some sort of pointers within the file. When displayed it does have some weird characters that appear between records and at the start. Not sure if this means I will not be able to do anything with it. When I say the file is large it is still only 4 or Mb. The file is basically a text file.

Might try and see if some data recovery expert will be able to take the complete file off and put onto a cd. My worry is that I will still get the same display when I open it.

I cannot seem to have any commands that can transfer the file as a file rather than transferring the contents.

 

[JohnWill]

I suspect the file is some sort of database file, even if it's a simple one. You need to determine what kind of database was in use on the system, and you may be able to convert it.

If the records are there just separated by some special character, a pretty simple program should be able to generate text records out of the file.

Can you ZIP it and attach it here? If it's plain text, it should crunch down pretty small. Maybe we can offer more suggestions if we actually see it.

I don't understand the comment "I cannot seem to have any commands that can transfer the file as a file rather than transferring the contents.". It sounds like you have the file to me. If you did a binary transfer, that's the file.

 

[deanmorgan]

Thanks for the advice John.

Basically I have used the following command on my old system COPY (file name) lst:

This copies the contents of my file onto the pc using the kermit program on the pc. I have captured the text on the pc and then saved the contents into notepad.

I can do the same for the main stock file and post it on here to see if you have any ideas. I was assuming if I was able to get the file as a file name ie RMC.DT1 I could then open this file using an appropriate program on the pc which would decipher all the info correctly.

At present when I send the file using the copy command to the pc I am getting approx 50 records in total within the file. I know that there is approx 4000 records on file held in the file name.

I will try and attach the file so you can see what I mean (I HOPE !!!)

 

[deanmorgan]

Hi John,

I have attached the txt file RMCDT1 that I got when I transferred to dt1 file. Really weird though. On the ICL DRS system it shows in the directory as approx 17 mb in sizes. When copied over using the kermit it reduces to about 8kb.

Although the text is scrambled in the file that can be fixed by making a small program to re-allocate the text.

Basically part of the record consists of the following (this is the 1st record in the txt file)

ASSACCAC/C = Our stock code)
AC/C = Supplier stock code
ALARM CONTROLLER GONG & PIPS = Stock part description
A = Type of part (in this case assembly)
RMC0340 = File number holding the bill of materials
41.93886 = Actual price
45.3736 = Standard price
EA = Each
CSL = Supplier
This is followed by other numerical figures which are for stock quantities and levels etc.

The characters at the start of the file mean nothing to me along with the funny Y's. There are other characters within the record which I assume (or am hoping) because of the file size they condense the actual file on screen. It may be that I need my actual stock program to be able to even open this file in the correct format. I have been assured that all the files are just text files and all data should be there though. Not sure quite what to do at the moment.