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getting files onto a vintage pc?

I own a Vintage IBM Portable with two 5 1/4 Floppies, since them kind of floppies are a bitch to deal with, I connected a 1.44 meg floppy to the printer port and things are all peachy now.

1.44 Meg Backpack, uses a tiny driver to load. :)
 
Chuck(G) said:
A bit glib, particularly if you consider the OP quote:


We're all assuming that there's something wrong with his 5.25" drive, based on this original post.
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Oh, I took it as a disk incompatibility problem not a hardware problem.

I do think I showed forethought as my solution is does not ignore the fact that since he can not get any data onto the machine, he obviously can not load any drivers or file transfer software.
 
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Yup, but that's been recommended before on this forum; it's recommended even more often when transfer between CP/M and 8-bit systems occurs and a 5.25" drive is needed (48/96/100 tpi).

The OP could have just as easily put a 3.5" drive on his PC and formatted up a 2D diskette up to 360K. Windows wouldn't care. (That was also suggested). Either way involves accommodation in the cable department, however (the 5160 diskette controller uses an edge connector, as do the 5.25" drives; a "modern" PC uses a 34 pin header, as do 3.5" drives--and 3.5" drives require an adapter to hook them to a 5160 power connector).

I like Gerry's solution--the Backpack can be gotten cheaply and works fine with a 5160 printer port. And there is/was a seller on eBay peddling NIB ones for $5 + shipping. You don't even need a screwdriver.

Mike's solution with the Xircom parallel adapter is a close second, although setting up the network software can be a little daunting if you've never done it before.
 
thebeck said:
Oh, I took it as a disk incompatibility problem not a hardware problem.

I do think I showed forethought as my solution is does not ignore the fact that since he can not get any data onto the machine, he obviously can not load any drivers or file transfer software.
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I think you (and some others?) may still be missing the important point about Interlink (included with DOS 6.x etc.), LapLink, etc., namely that they do *NOT* require you to first install any drivers or software on the system in question (e.g. an old DOS laptop with no working floppy or CD drives). As long as you have a DOS version between 3.x and WIN98 (AFAIK), a com port and a null modem cable, you can install them from the remote system via the serial ports .

So even if you're going to use an external PP floppy, ZIP drive, Ethernet adapter or anything that needs a driver installed to make it work, if you don't have a compatible diskette drive you still need a way like this to get the drivers on to the system in question in the first place.
 
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Most systems tend to have some kind of terminal software so you can use a null modem between them. If you are lucky there is even software that makes the transfer easy (Amiga explorer for example between a PC and Amiga).

Printer ports are nice if your machine has a bi directional port (early ones were one way I think).
 
Chuck(G) said:
A bit glib, particularly if you consider the OP quote:


We're all assuming that there's something wrong with his 5.25" drive, based on this original post.
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And even if it does work, most 'modern' systems will have trouble with a 360K drive no matter how much you 'adjust' the BIOS; used properly, and contrary to much advice, a 1.2M HD drive usually has a better chance of working and being compatible with a 360K.
 
MikeS said:
So even if you're going to use an external PP floppy, ZIP drive, Ethernet adapter or anything that needs a driver installed to make it work, if you don't have a compatible diskette drive you still need a way like this to get the drivers on to the system in question in the first place.
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Mike, I've mostly been a parallel-link user. Can you use Interlink no-disk instrall if your modern host is Win2K/XP/Vista? Or do you need a DOS/9X system?
 
Chuck(G) said:
Mike, I've mostly been a parallel-link user. Can you use Interlink no-disk instrall if your modern host is Win2K/XP/Vista? Or do you need a DOS/9X system?
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Chuck,

It will probably work fine with Win 9x, but any of the NT OSes (2000, XP, Vista, 7, Server 2000, 2003 or 2008) it won't work at all. The NT based operating systems introduced a HAL (hardware abstraction layer), and any software that need to interact with the hardware cannot get to it directly. The OS needs to give permission.

Interlnk tries to access the hardware directly and as such gets cut off by the operating system.
 
MikeS said:
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And even if it does work, most 'modern' systems will have trouble with a 360K drive no matter how much you 'adjust' the BIOS; used properly, and contrary to much advice, a 1.2M HD drive usually has a better chance of working and being compatible with a 360K.
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Yeah, you are right, how glib of me. :rolleyes: A modern system is going to have lots of problems.

Interlink is not going to work.
Laplink is not going to work.
360k drive in a modern pc is not going to work.
Formatting a 1.44m or 720k floppy to 360k is not going to work.

For any of the above to work, Zor is going to need to have something like a 486 with dos or Win95/98. For the Laplink/Interlink options, Zor will also need a null modem cable or the appropriate parallel cable.

About the only thing that will work with an old PC and a modern PC is going to be a terminal in Windows and a terminal on the XT. Then use Z/Xmodem to transfer the files. (this has already been suggested.)

Or create a fat16 partition on your modern PC. Load all of the software onto that partition and boot with a dos disk and then use Laplink or Interlink again with the proper cable.

Or Ethernet (again it's been suggested.)

It being an XT, you can always write your own terminal in basic. ;)
 
I'd say setup a 486 machine, load it with Window 95 or 98, get the TCP/IP working with your modern machine (Netbui for file sharing).

Then you can get the data to the 9x machine via the network and either dump it onto 360k floppies (since the machine would support this option) or boot into a DOS prompt and use a laplink or null modem cable with the software of your choice (interlnk, Norton Commander, Laplink etc). Heck these softwares may even work from inside Win 9x.


This is pretty much how I do it.
 
Chuck(G) said:
Mike, I've mostly been a parallel-link user. Can you use Interlink no-disk instrall if your modern host is Win2K/XP/Vista? Or do you need a DOS/9X system?
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AFAIK it doesn't work with anything later than 98SE (although it might work in one of the VMs) and of course you can only do a remote install over the serial port, but once installed you can switch to the parallel port for greater speed. Presumably you could make a bootable DOS disk or partition for your W2K+ system, use that to install and copy needed drivers or some better transfer or terminal software, and then use that better way in Win >98.

Of course if both systems are running Windows you could use Direct Cable Connect over the com, parallel or IR ports; it's essentially the Windows version of Lap/Inter-Link. USB<>IR adapters for the main system are cheap, and handy if you have to deal with old floppy-less laptops.
 
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thebeck said:
Yeah, you are right, how glib of me. :rolleyes: A modern system is going to have lots of problems.

Interlink is not going to work.
Laplink is not going to work.
360k drive in a modern pc is not going to work.
Formatting a 1.44m or 720k floppy to 360k is not going to work.

For any of the above to work, Zor is going to need to have something like a 486 with dos or Win95/98. For the Laplink/Interlink options, Zor will also need a null modem cable or the appropriate parallel cable.

About the only thing that will work with an old PC and a modern PC is going to be a terminal in Windows and a terminal on the XT. Then use Z/Xmodem to transfer the files. (this has already been suggested.)

Or create a fat16 partition on your modern PC. Load all of the software onto that partition and boot with a dos disk and then use Laplink or Interlink again with the proper cable.

Or Ethernet (again it's been suggested.)

It being an XT, you can always write your own terminal in basic. ;)
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Well, if you can make a bootable DOS/W98-or-less disk, USB stick, CD, or even a partition as you suggest, and the box still has a com port then Inter/Lap-link should work fine to get those first needed files across, and then you can use whatever you like; that's the only point I was trying to make.
 
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lutiana said:
I'd say setup a 486 machine, load it with Window 95 or 98, get the TCP/IP working with your modern machine (Netbui for file sharing).

Then you can get the data to the 9x machine via the network and either dump it onto 360k floppies (since the machine would support this option) or boot into a DOS prompt and use a laplink or null modem cable with the software of your choice (interlnk, Norton Commander, Laplink etc). Heck these softwares may even work from inside Win 9x.

This is pretty much how I do it.
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As we've read, there are many different ways of getting data from one computer to another, but if the target system does not have a disk drive or other storage medium compatible with the other system and you don't want to build another computer just to copy a few files, then your options are a little more limited.
;-)

But I think the OP gave up on us and our many options long ago...
 
My typical way of getting files on my 8088's and 286 is to get the machine setup with a network connection (NetBEUI or TCP/IP), and then set up file shares on the modern machines for the old boxes to pull from.

Sometimes I build a pre-built software load using a batch file which makes directories on the target and then copies the files to it in that directory. Works great for moving huge amounts of files.

As for getting the networking on there, it depends from machine to machine. I always keep a 1.44M floppy in my modern boxes, and some of the older ones that support dual floppies and 5.25" floppies have a 5.25" drive installed as well at 1.2M or 360K. Now my Tandy 1000 functions as the main 360K box as it has 2 of them and is reliably networked to my home LAN so I can make any 360K diskette I want from images or grouping files together for the disk. Most of my pre-network stuff is done by sneakernet and disk shuffling to put it in basic terms.
 
I've got a deal on a lot of 5 old SCSI CD-ROM drives, slow ones. I also over the last few years got lucky and and got a bootable 8bit SCSI card with another lot of cards purchased. I have made several cd-roms with several different systems so I can re-config very fast. Works with my XT(5160). With my AT(5170) I am using a 16bit IDE that supports a CD-ROM. The same cd's used on the XT were used on the AT to get me started. If there is anyway to install a cd-rom your problem solved. My total cost was less than $30 on ebay but a lot of searching over 3-4 months.

framer
 
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