HP-8X series 5 1/4" disk cross-platform compatibility

[Floppies_only]

Gentlemen,

I finally managed to come up with something mathematical I'd like to do using vintage computers. I'd love to do it on an HP-86, but it involves getting text from a word processor into the HP, manipulating it with BASIC, and then getting it back out again for use with a modern USB floppy drive. I doubt I can afford a machine with the 3 1/2" drives if one does show up. Does anyone know how I can accomplish what I want using the 5 1/4" floppy drive?

Thanks,
Sean

 

[krebizfan]

22Disk lists HP-86 as one of the supported formats so if you have a PC with 5.25" drive you could try that.

Edit: Several dedicated applications were designed to transfer disks between PC and HP-8x. Maybe this will help some. ftp://ftp.hpmuseum.org/lif/lifutil/

 

[Floppies_only]

22Disk lists HP-86 as one of the supported formats so if you have a PC with 5.25" drive you could try that.

Edit: Several dedicated applications were designed to transfer disks between PC and HP-8x. Maybe this will help some. ftp://ftp.hpmuseum.org/lif/lifutil/

Are lifarc.exe and LIFUTIL one and the same? The ftp site has the first available for download and the second is mentioned in the .txt doc in the same directory. The email address to request a copy bounced - I was just covering all the bases

Sean

 

[krebizfan]

LIFARC.EXE is a self-extracting ARC file containing CVT.BAS, CVT.EXE, and LIFUTIL.EXE. If you don't trust self-extracting executables, there are about a half dozen programs that can open it for you. I used Izarc to double check the contents.

Also, look at the directories above the one I linked to which include more programs that could be helpful in the future including the HP SWAP disks.