topic Re: DEC RX02 to MSDOS Conversion in Operating System - OpenVMS

DEC RX02 to MSDOS Conversion

troya — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 21:03:43 GMT

I need to port files stored on a 8 inch DEC RX02 formatted floppy disc to a MSDOS formatted 3.5 inch floppy disc.

The equipment we have are a RX02 floppy disc drive and a VAX 4000 model 100 desktop computer.

How could we get the files stored on the 8 inch floppy to the VAX 4000 hard drive so we can FTP the files from the VAX 4000 computer to a PC.

Would this solution work or do you have another suggestion?

Thanks for your help.

Re: DEC RX02 to MSDOS Conversion

Jim_McKinney — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 21:34:47 GMT

Give the old EXCHANGE utility a try.

$ HELP EXCHANGE

Depending upon the format of the diskette it might be as simple as the following (it's been a long time since I've used EXCHANGE so my memory might be faulty here).

$ MOUNT/FOREIGN DYA0:
EXCHANGE> COPY DYA0:*.* []
EXCHANGE> EXIT

Re: DEC RX02 to MSDOS Conversion

Steven Schweda — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 21:34:49 GMT

> The equipment we have are a RX02 floppy
> disc drive and a VAX 4000 model 100 desktop
> computer.

Are they connected somehow? (How? I don't
know what the interface on an RX02 is, but
I wouldn't expect a VAX 4000-100 to have one
of them, whatever it is. Now, if you had a
Q-bus box on the VAX, and the right card in
that, my expectations could change.)

> Would this solution work [...]

Hard to say, with the info available.

Assuming that you can get the giant floppy
drive connected/configured somewhere, the
next mystery might be how the data were
written to the floppies. If they were
written by/on an old VMS system, there might
be more hope than if they were written on,
say, an old Apollo workstation (which is the
last place I saw an 8-inch floppy spun in
anger). Reading the raw bits should be
possible almost anywhere, but recovering the
original structure could be harder.

There are whole businesses devoted to doing
jobs like this, if the bits are _really_
valuable.

Re: DEC RX02 to MSDOS Conversion

Jim_McKinney — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 21:37:03 GMT

> $ MOUNT/FOREIGN DYA0:

There should of course have been an EXCHANGE command after the mount in my previous post.

$ EXCHANGE

> EXCHANGE> COPY DYA0:*.* []
> EXCHANGE> EXIT

Re: DEC RX02 to MSDOS Conversion

Steven Schweda — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 23:29:23 GMT

> [...] Now, if you had a
> Q-bus box on the VAX, and the right card in
> that, [...]

My old MODULE.FAQ says:

M8029 RXV21 Q RX02 floppy disk drive control module

Or, if you had a SCSI 8-inch floppy drive, ...

Re: DEC RX02 to MSDOS Conversion

Joseph Huber_1 — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 10:55:04 GMT

"DEC RX02 formatted": the chances are high they are from RSTS or RSX, then they are ODS1 and can be mounted as VMS volumes, and no /foreign and EXCHANGE is needed.
JUST MOUNT and COPY.

Re: DEC RX02 to MSDOS Conversion

Robert Brooks_1 — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 21:19:23 GMT

"DEC RX02 formatted": the chances are high they are from RSTS or RSX, then they are ODS1 and can be mounted as VMS volumes, and no /foreign and EXCHANGE is needed.
JUST MOUNT and COPY.

--
RSX yes; RSTS no. If it was written by RSTS, it's likely to be in DOS-11 format. The ODS format is not readable by RSTS, let alone writeable.

-- Rob

Re: DEC RX02 to MSDOS Conversion

troya — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:27:56 GMT

Correction, we have a VAX 4000 model 60 not a model 100.

We also have an old external dual 8 inch floppy disc drive. I could not find a part/model# for the drive but the circuit boards have DEC etched on them.

The communication ports on the back of the VAX 4000 model 60 are: SCSI port, Printer/communications port (TTA3), Communications/printer port (TTA2), standard ethernet port, ThinWire ethernet port.

Is it possible to get the floppy disc drive and VAX communicating over one of these ports so I could copy the file located on the floppy to the VAX hard drive?

After the file is copied to the hard drive, would it be possible to connect a PC and the VAX together via ethernet and use FTP to transfer the file from the VAX to the Windows PC? If so, how would I configure the vax to use Tcp/IP, FTP, assign IP address, etc?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You.

Re: DEC RX02 to MSDOS Conversion

Steven Schweda — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:58:36 GMT

> [...] we have a VAX 4000 model 60 [...]

A VAXstation 4000 model 60, right?

> Is it possible to get the floppy disc drive
> and VAX communicating over one of these
> ports so I could copy the file located on
> the floppy to the VAX hard drive?

I don't see how. The floppy drive most
likely has an interface different from any of
these. You probably don't have either the
Q-bus card which was used to provide that
interface, or the Q-bus into which to plug
the thing. (You'd need a larger [Micro]VAX
for that.)

> After the file is copied to the hard drive,
> would it be possible to connect a PC and
> the VAX together via ethernet and use FTP
> to transfer the file from the VAX to the
> Windows PC?

Sure, if there's any IP software installed on
the VMS system. It's generally optional on
VMS, and there are multiple vendors, too.

> If so, how would I configure the vax to use
> Tcp/IP, FTP, assign IP address, etc?

That depends on whose IP software you have
(if any).

Luckily, with no place to connect the floppy
drive, this whole family of problems may
never arise.

Re: DEC RX02 to MSDOS Conversion

Jon Pinkley — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 21:14:45 GMT

RE:"Would this solution work or do you have another suggestion?"

Pay someone that has the correct set of equipment to do this.