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Moving files around.

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cj7hawk

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Perth, Western Australia.
Just wondering what different people do to move files around with old PCs...

Without USB, it's kind of difficult and laplink won't talk to any modern machines.

I've been using a ZIP drive, with a parallel port interface, and floppies to load the guest application, but what are the best ways to move files to and from old computers.

I know we're talking megabytes, not gigabytes, but floppy drives are too slow.

I thought about using a Gotek, but surely there are other solutions out there? I can't find any parallel port hdd or CD adapters anymore, so what does everyone else do? To archive up an old HDD or restore it?

Thanks
David
 
It's been a while for me, but I still have an (8-bit) WD8003 ethernet card, a packet driver, and software that will do FTP, etc.

Gotek works, too.
 
I still have a tweener that retains the ports needed to contact the older machines and then can move the results to USB for processing by a modern machine.
 
Network + EtherDfs for me. A NAS runs the server and share folders between new and old machines. ISA ethernet cards that works on 8 bit slots are cheap and easy to find.
 
If ISA slot present, XT-CFlite otherwise ZIP drive (with palmZIP for XT machines).
Sometimes I also used a USB IDE interface and grabbed the files directly from the HD
 
SD2LPT but mainly i burn a cd full of files as I have thousands of blank cds and I use a parallel port cdrom (backpack) to read and copy those files. Now thats just with PCs.. If your talking non Ibm compatibles thats different on each system.
 
Two random old PCs, Norton Commander via LPT. I have a pretty long and flexible Symantec original cable from my PcAnywhere from back in the day. It's also yellow. Which is great.

I keep a small backlog of random network adapters from ISA to 20Gbps interfaces, to always have something that can be popped in some box and connected to the home network.

Also made a long nullmodem cable for last resort. Of course, all this next to CF cards.
 
I heard the cool kids are using cassettes.


Never mind, that was just some hipsters...
 
cj7hawk said:
I know we're talking megabytes, not gigabytes, but floppy drives are too slow.

I thought about using a Gotek, but surely there are other solutions out there?
Click to expand...
Gotek is pretty slow as far as I've used it. There may be some ability to go a bit faster, especially with HxC or flashfloppy firmware options, but pretty much it runs at the speed of a floppy drive. It's handy to have a Gotek in an old PC though, and they don't cost much. I went ahead and did the OLED mod on mine after flashing flashfloppy firmware.

I think a CF card with appropriate adapter is the best bet.
 
My first Gotek experience, I was immediately surprised how slow it seemed, and then, Doh!, I remembered it's floppy speed.
 
It depends on what old hardware you have.

For my MS-DOS systems with 3.5" floppy drives, I have a USB-to-3.5" floppy drive that I can use on my modern systems.
For MS-DOS systems with hard drives, I use a IDE-to-CF adapter and the CF card just mounts to my modern system.
For my TRS-80s, I have a FreHD which allows me to import files from the SD card.
For my Commodore 64 or Plus/4, I have a pi1541 and I can just copy files from the SD card.
My Pocket Computers all have cassette interfaces, so I just hook those up to my modern PC's sound card.

My Kaypros are a little harder. I have to copy the files to an MS-DOS system with a 5.25" floppy drive. Then I use the old 22dsk utilities to copy files.
This will work with HxC or Gotek floppy emulators too - but you need to use the same emulator in both the MS-DOS and Kaypro.
 
I have a bit of a bias, but for me the solution is clearly networking:
  • FTP provides a standard way to move files around from a variety of systems On DOS you can use either an FTP client or server.
  • HTGet lets you download a file over HTTP from a web server.
  • SAMBA works if you want Microsoft-style file sharing, although it eats a lot of RAM.
  • EtherDFS does file-level sharing that is lighter than SAMBA
  • mTCP NetDrive is less about file movement and more about adding storage to a machine over the network.
And all of these are faster than any floppy interface. After your Ethernet card is installed none of these require you to move devices or cables around either. NetDrive can even beat the speed of slower hard drives.

For full backups of a hard drive I have code that reads sector-by-sector and streams the bytes over the network to another machine, creating a disk image of the drive. I've also started using NetDrive as a target for XCOPY when I want to do file level backups of a hard drive.

A high quality 8-bit ISA bus compatible network card can be had new for $50. (https://www.tindie.com/products/weird/isa-8-bit-ethernet-controller/) 16 bit cards for are all over eBay at reasonable prices.
 
mbbrutman said:
I have a bit of a bias, but for me the solution is clearly networking:
  • FTP provides a standard way to move files around from a variety of systems On DOS you can use either an FTP client or server.
  • HTGet lets you download a file over HTTP from a web server.
  • SAMBA works if you want Microsoft-style file sharing, although it eats a lot of RAM.
  • EtherDFS does file-level sharing that is lighter than SAMBA
  • mTCP NetDrive is less about file movement and more about adding storage to a machine over the network.
And all of these are faster than any floppy interface. After your Ethernet card is installed none of these require you to move devices or cables around either. NetDrive can even beat the speed of slower hard drives.

For full backups of a hard drive I have code that reads sector-by-sector and streams the bytes over the network to another machine, creating a disk image of the drive. I've also started using NetDrive as a target for XCOPY when I want to do file level backups of a hard drive.

A high quality 8-bit ISA bus compatible network card can be had new for $50. (https://www.tindie.com/products/weird/isa-8-bit-ethernet-controller/) 16 bit cards for are all over eBay at reasonable prices.
Click to expand...
Thats Great Mike, I didnt know about this and just bought one. (y)
 
The xtide-based isa to sd adapter is probably the most hassle free. Really convenient setting-up systems with dosbox on a laptop, then write out to sd card.

If you have to get data off a Hardcard drive, then I have used the serial port to a null modem cable to a usb serial adapter (software: dos txzm, windows teraterm, linux minicom). You may need a 25-pin d-sub female connector for the old machine. Great time to get chores done while 20mb moves through an 8250 uart (but somewhat faster than writing to floppies).
 
VERAULT said:
Thats Great Mike, I didnt know about this and just bought one. (y)
Click to expand...
I've got one and I absolutely love it. Thanks to the jumpers, you can configure the card exactly as you want (address, IRQ). I've tested it in XTs and ATs and it works just great with mTCP. Make sure to use the modified NE2000 driver for 8-bit slots!
 
cj7hawk said:
Just wondering what different people do to move files around with old PCs...

Without USB, it's kind of difficult and laplink won't talk to any modern machines.

I've been using a ZIP drive, with a parallel port interface, and floppies to load the guest application, but what are the best ways to move files to and from old computers.

I know we're talking megabytes, not gigabytes, but floppy drives are too slow.

I thought about using a Gotek, but surely there are other solutions out there? I can't find any parallel port hdd or CD adapters anymore, so what does everyone else do? To archive up an old HDD or restore it?

Thanks
David
Click to expand...
Actually you can plug USB keys with an ISA to USB adapter board (CH375). You can get one on Aliexpress or eBay. It's my preferred option when it comes to moving files and it's also one of the cheapest.
 
Fwiw, here is what I do.
I have a tweener PC running W98 that is able to run laplink via Parallel. The tweener has a network share that allows Laplink to access files from my main storage. The tweener also has old floppy drives if needed.
 
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