3 ms·

Software Preservation Group

9 points by fogus 17y ago

pasbesoin 17y ago
Reminded me of my old Kaypro (CP/M). I have/had a DOS based emulator, nice22^H^H^H^H^H^H 22nice. Googling around for it turns up: http://www.dcast.vbox.co.uk/cpm_over.html http://www.dcast.vbox.co.uk/cpm_over.html http://www.cpm.z80.de/emulate.html http://www.cpm.z80.de/emulate.html The latter has a copy for download. (Although both also provide alternatives, some maybe better.) Now, I think I still have access to an idle 5 1/4 floppy drive and a PC with an old enough bus to use it. Long overdue to do a bit of personal preservation. I also have a CD ROM that I ordered years ago from some outfit in Oak Creek, CA, IIRC, that has a bunch of CP/M based software. If I can find it and it has not rotted...
- rbanffy 17y ago
  Any PC with a floppy port will do. The difference between 3.5 and 5.25 is the connector. If there is one good thing in a modern PC is that it is a matrioshka of every older PC design going down all the way from your Core i7 mobo to an IBM 5150. I bet my Atom-based netbook initializes an ISA bus and a couple serial ports when it boots.
  - pasbesoin 17y ago
    That's a bet I won't take. I guess I meant a physically exposed bus with a connector I can use. I've seen USB adapted 3.5 drives, but I don't think I've seen one in the 5.25 format. If I did, it might be priced at a significant percentage of the cost of your netbook! I suppose someone still sells internal adapter cards, or there's eBay and the junk store. I keep forgetting about eBay; I guess I've no immediate worries about acquiring some piece of equipment if needed. But I still have a couple of relics laying around that should do. BTW, I still miss that Kaypro's keyboard -- not half bad. Less so, "hacking" up Wordstar documents with control sequences to backspace the Okidata to make do-it-yourself Umlauts and Eszett. But now I guess I'm drifting over to hardware, whose preservation is a separate group.
    - rbanffy 17y ago
      "That's a bet I won't take. I guess I meant a physically exposed bus with a connector I can use." Of course not. It's only an imaginary bus, present only in the chipset and required by the UARTs that drive the serial ports. A 3.5 USB adapter may suffice. You would have to match the cable for a 5.25 drive (usually it is within the computer box that has the drive :-P ) As for the keyboards... I still want to build some "classic" keyboards respecting the lay-out of some old and badly missed computers. Tooling would be a problem.
      - pasbesoin 17y ago
        A 3.5 USB adapter may suffice. You would have to match the cable for a 5.25 drive (usually it is within the computer box that has the drive :-P ) I hadn't thought of that. Thanks!

9 points by fogus 17y ago

Reminded me of my old Kaypro (CP/M). I have/had a DOS based emulator, nice22^H^H^H^H^H^H 22nice. Googling around for it turns up: http://www.dcast.vbox.co.uk/cpm_over.html http://www.dcast.vbox.co.uk/cpm_over.html http://www.cpm.z80.de/emulate.html http://www.cpm.z80.de/emulate.html The latter has a copy for download. (Although both also provide alternatives, some maybe better.) Now, I think I still have access to an idle 5 1/4 floppy drive and a PC with an old enough bus to use it. Long overdue to do a bit of personal preservation. I also have a CD ROM that I ordered years ago from some outfit in Oak Creek, CA, IIRC, that has a bunch of CP/M based software. If I can find it and it has not rotted...

rbanffy 17y ago
Any PC with a floppy port will do. The difference between 3.5 and 5.25 is the connector. If there is one good thing in a modern PC is that it is a matrioshka of every older PC design going down all the way from your Core i7 mobo to an IBM 5150. I bet my Atom-based netbook initializes an ISA bus and a couple serial ports when it boots.
- pasbesoin 17y ago
  That's a bet I won't take. I guess I meant a physically exposed bus with a connector I can use. I've seen USB adapted 3.5 drives, but I don't think I've seen one in the 5.25 format. If I did, it might be priced at a significant percentage of the cost of your netbook! I suppose someone still sells internal adapter cards, or there's eBay and the junk store. I keep forgetting about eBay; I guess I've no immediate worries about acquiring some piece of equipment if needed. But I still have a couple of relics laying around that should do. BTW, I still miss that Kaypro's keyboard -- not half bad. Less so, "hacking" up Wordstar documents with control sequences to backspace the Okidata to make do-it-yourself Umlauts and Eszett. But now I guess I'm drifting over to hardware, whose preservation is a separate group.
  - rbanffy 17y ago
    "That's a bet I won't take. I guess I meant a physically exposed bus with a connector I can use." Of course not. It's only an imaginary bus, present only in the chipset and required by the UARTs that drive the serial ports. A 3.5 USB adapter may suffice. You would have to match the cable for a 5.25 drive (usually it is within the computer box that has the drive :-P ) As for the keyboards... I still want to build some "classic" keyboards respecting the lay-out of some old and badly missed computers. Tooling would be a problem.
    - pasbesoin 17y ago
      A 3.5 USB adapter may suffice. You would have to match the cable for a 5.25 drive (usually it is within the computer box that has the drive :-P ) I hadn't thought of that. Thanks!