Z110 read floppy disk question.
- From: Mike Luther <mike.luther@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 02:00:36 +0000
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Another of my things to do includes transfer of some data files from Z100 CP/M
operations to DOS.
I've actually done this MANY years ago and still have a copy of UNIFORM even on
this Intel 915GAVL 3GHZ OS/2 MCP2 latest everything system!
6-12-96 3:23p 47878 0 UNIFORM.ZIP
However, thinking back for MANY years ago, my recall about this is the even at
that time UNIFORM wouldn't work with CPU speeds of over the last versions of
the Z100 system.
I've also got a copy of 22DISK I found today:
12-20-07 3:31a 232480 71 22dsk144.zip
But I've never tried this tool. Looking into the documentation, I notice that
the registered version can supposedly handle even the ZDS 8" floppies, as well
as the ZDS 5.25" floppies of both the 'density' types.
I've got a pile full of 5.25" floppies that have been carefully kept at decent
temperatures and so on, some in CP/M format. A few of them have data files on
them I really need moved to DOS disk formats. At the moment I have two Z100
boxes, neither of which turn on right now. That's another project to try to
recover at least one of them .. both of which also have hard drive units in
them and were last on the DOS system format.
But aside from that, I'd also like to try to mount one of these older floppy
disk drives against a modern OS/2 box. But my memory from LONG years ago is a
little confused. I've got piles of TWO types of 5.25" floppies, some with my
own 629K size noted on them. And some with 745K size on them. My memory of
all this is that Heath created an extension for the 5.25" arena which defined
and 'extended density' diskette which could be read and written in 'later'
model drives.
OK, I've taken an older 200Mhz Intel CPU box and mounted one of the Z110 floppy
drives in it configured as drive #1, unterminated, along with a 'normal' 3-1/2"
1.4 MB regular drive. If I tell the BIOS on the motherboard this is a 360K
5-1/4" drive, I actually can 'see' the directory of the drive if I boot this
box from a FreeDOS floppy I use for cloning and other work with Jan Wijk's
DFSEE utility for hard drive serious work and cloning.
I can jam in MS-DOS floppies from the 1984 MS-DOS 3.1 time line and at least
read the directories from a DOS boot, but I've not tried to see if that means I
can actually access both sides of the these floppies this way.
Nor have I finished setting up an OS/2 hard drive in this box, that to see what
happens for this drive as a device which can be seen under OS/2. In theory, I
can 'hand define' what device configuration should be interfaced with
the OS/2 floppy device driver at boot time, at least for the drive capacity in
Kbytes. As well, I think that if the device is 'thought' to be a 48TPI or
96TPI unit, I think that setting a 'limit' for the Kbyte capacity of, say,
Drive B: for this drive, in OS/2 will, in theory get me there.
There are a *LOT* of diskettes to go through and move forward. All the backups
for everything prior to the advent of tape backups...
A long time ago, someone told me that you could actually stuff the 8" floppy
drive units against the floppy controller and read and write them with the IBM
floppy device driver hand configured in the OS/2 CONFIG.SYS. But I've never
tried that yet either. I have these units and 8" diskettes for them with both
DOS and CP/M files on them also to examine.
Part of my questions have to do with the fact that, per my memory, there were
actually two different Heath/Zenith Z100 floppy diskette formats and I've used
both of them. There was an extended density or whatever size for the floppy
disks, as I've noted.
OK, what track density and count and so on is involved for these two types of
media? If I can 'see' the diskettes for the DOS version of a given size floppy,
then I just MIGHT be able to use 22DISK to see the files, then read them over
to whatever in the current 3.5" 1.4MB stuff and cheer all the way the the disk
vault!
Can anyone help me here?
Thanks!
--
--> Sleep well; OS2's still awake! ;)
Mike Luther
--
--> Sleep well; OS2's still awake! ;)
Mike Luther
.
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