transfering information from 1981 PC to a computer of today

[WillyW]

I'll wager he only has a 5 1/4" 360K floppy drive.

How would that affect him?

[unlovedwarrior]

willyw that would confuse me to know end

[2k_dummy]

Thats where the drivparm command came into play. You could set the parameters for the floppy drive to be something other than the default. Could also be used to set parameters for tape drives and HD. You couldn't make a drive be something it is not, but you could make a 5¼ inch 360K drive read and write 1.2m 5¼ disks. Same for 3½ inch 720K and 1.44m drives. With tape drives and HD's you had to specify heads, sectors, and tracks, which could also be done with floppy drives but generally was not necessary.

None of this should have any effect on data transfer.

[GX1_Man]

He's going to have to have some appropriate size floppy disks and then an appropriate cable to hook to a newer machine.

[WillyW]

Had a quick look around.

If anyone is interested,  old versions of LapLink can be downloaded here:

http://oldfiles.org.uk/powerload/msdos.htm

[Raptor]

You're all so eager to show off your knowledge of old junk that you forgot to notice the guy never came back..

[WillyW]

You're all so eager to show off your knowledge of old junk that you forgot to notice the guy never came back..

"(Read 109 times)"

But we don't know who else may benefit.



By the way,   who says it is junk?       

[2k_dummy]

You're all so eager to show off your knowledge of old junk that you forgot to notice the guy never came back..

I noticed, but it got to be fun. I like to tinker with "the old junk".

[GX1_Man]

I like to communicate with people older than 15 sometimes. 

[2k_dummy]

Oh, yeah! I bet when I mentioned MFM and RLL, there wasn't a 15 year old on these boards that knew what they meant.

[GX1_Man]

I am positive you are correct. 

[Raptor]

Enlighten all the 15 year olds, then?

[2k_dummy]

Enlighten all the 15 year olds, then?

Do you need enlightment as well?

MFM = Modified Frequency Modulation
RLL = Run Length Limited

Any HD that was rated for RLL could be formatted for either RLL or MFM, but not all MFM rated drives could reliably be formatted RLL. RLL allowed 50% more data to be crammed on a drive.

[Raptor]

So why is it incompatible?

[2k_dummy]

The data itself is not, the drives are. Most of those old drives required a dual cable hookup. They are not IDE compatable and cannot be hooked up to an IDE connector. It is possible to connect one IF one can find the proper adaptor. When IDE became the standard, manufacturers made adaptors to allow the old drives to be used. Then again, these adaptors were ISA. At the time, PCI wasn't even a figment of someones imagination. For several years computers were made with both ISA and PCI slots. Some even had "dual use" slots that accepted either type of card. I have an old machine that has those slots plus a proprietary slot for a memory card (you couldn't just plug in a memory stick like we do now). It has a 9 megs of total memory. At the time it was manufactured, it was a genuine "golly whopper" muscle machine. It has a 20 year old RLL HD that was still working when I set it aside about 4 years ago in my "tinker around" shop.