Re: [Freedos-user] Floppy fetish search

[Robert Riebisch]

Hi Eric,

> As Microsoft software has been sold with the vast majority
> of all computers ever sold, I expect enough of the dozens
> of millions of German MS DOS 4.01 and Windows 3.1 manuals
> to be available as historical documents so the world could
> get by without mine, but if anybody wants them, tell me :-D
> 
> Cheers, Eric
> 
> PS: Also let me know if you know of nearby (e.g. Germany or
> surrounding countries) nice computer museums, I am in touch
> with some really fancy hardware items for exhibitions :-)

Although your post is a little old, maybe Axel of
 wants some of your stuff.

Cheers,
Robert
-- 
  +++ BTTR Software +++
 Home page: https://www.bttr-software.de/
DOS ain't dead: https://www.bttr-software.de/forum/


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Re: [Freedos-user] Floppy fetish search

[Robert Riebisch]

Hi Eric,

>> I don't need the actual floppies - but I'd love to have a photo of 
>> them.
> 
> Interesting thought :-) Might take a moment, but good idea. I also like
> the hard blue plastic boxes in which Inmac sold the floppies.

I always liked the red box from Dysan:
https://www.ebay.de/itm/New-Dysan-Dyson-100-10-Diskettes-MF2-HD-Quantity-1-pack-Sealed-/133110043536

Still have at least one of those here. :-)

Cheers,
Robert
-- 
  +++ BTTR Software +++
 Home page: https://www.bttr-software.de/
DOS ain't dead: https://www.bttr-software.de/forum/


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Re: [Freedos-user] Floppy fetish search

[Joao Silva]

Hi.

Ok.
I'm not from Germany... i'm from Portugal, just before Spain.

On Thu, Oct 8, 2020 at 8:06 PM Eric Auer  wrote:

>
> Hi Joao,
>
> As Microsoft software has been sold with the vast majority
> of all computers ever sold, I expect enough of the dozens
> of millions of German MS DOS 4.01 and Windows 3.1 manuals
> to be available as historical documents so the world could
> get by without mine, but if anybody wants them, tell me :-D
>
> Cheers, Eric
>
> PS: Also let me know if you know of nearby (e.g. Germany or
> surrounding countries) nice computer museums, I am in touch
> with some really fancy hardware items for exhibitions :-)
>
> > Hello!
> >
> > Why destroy the manuals?
> >
> > You can give them to some Institution for preservation, they are a piece
> of
> > computer history or you can frame them and put on the wall of your
> office.
>
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-user] Floppy fetish search

[dmccunney]

On Thu, Oct 8, 2020 at 3:30 PM Eric Auer  wrote:
>
> > Yes!  Please send them somewhere to be scanned and OCRed!  Get in touch
> > with Al Kossow of the Computer History Museum in Sunnyvale CA.  See
> > http://www.bitsavers.org/ and http://www.bitsavers.org/.
>
> Nah I do not want to get in trouble with Microsoft by sending
> them to some abandonpaper website like bit savers ;-) I was
> thinking of somebody who likes the manuals for private use.

Microsoft will not  *care*. DOS has not been a sold or
supported product for decades, and the people on their legal staff
concerned with IP have far better things to do with their time than
come after you for that.

As a rule, the IP  lawyers get involved when *preserving* property
rights are a concern, or there is enough potential *revenue* that
might be lost that piracy is a real issue. Neither of those are true
here.

> I see that so far, bitsavers.org has only the MS DOS 2.0
> programmers reference manual as English PDF, by the way,
> so they seem to be careful with Microsoft, too.

This has nothing to do with MS caring.  Bitsavers relies on third
parties like you to scan and digitize old documentation.  Once they
have it, they will host it, but *they* don't do the scanning. They
only have the DOS 2.0 programmer's reference manual in English because
that is all anyone has sent them.  If they were *that* concerned about
MS, they wouldn't have *it* online.

If you don't *want* to do this, that's fine.  We all have two hands
and 24 hours in a day, and must decide what we will spend our time.on.
If this is more time and effort than you wish to invest, so be it. But
"MS might object" is not a valid reason for not doing it.

> Cheers, Eric
__
Dennis


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Re: [Freedos-user] Floppy fetish search

[Eric Auer]

Hi!

>> Why destroy the manuals?
>>
>> You can give them to some Institution for preservation, they are a
>> piece of
>> computer history or you can frame them and put on the wall of your
>> office.

> Yes!  Please send them somewhere to be scanned and OCRed!  Get in touch
> with Al Kossow of the Computer History Museum in Sunnyvale CA.  See
> http://www.bitsavers.org/ and http://www.bitsavers.org/.

Nah I do not want to get in trouble with Microsoft by sending
them to some abandonpaper website like bit savers ;-) I was
thinking of somebody who likes the manuals for private use.

I see that so far, bitsavers.org has only the MS DOS 2.0
programmers reference manual as English PDF, by the way,
so they seem to be careful with Microsoft, too.

Cheers, Eric



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Re: [Freedos-user] Floppy fetish search

[David Griffith]

My reply is at the bottom.  Please put your reply there too.
On Thu, 8 Oct 2020, Joao Silva wrote:

On Thu, Oct 8, 2020 at 1:10 PM E. Auer  wrote:

  Hi everybody,

  > I don't need the actual floppies - but I'd love to have a
  photo of
  > them.

  Interesting thought :-) Might take a moment, but good idea. I
  also like
  the hard blue plastic boxes in which Inmac sold the floppies.

  In the meantime, my offer has grown by 20 small 3.5 inch
  diskettes, as
  well as various storage boxes for big and small diskettes.
  Actually one
  can use those for 5.25 inch diskettes to organize CD or DVD, in
  case
  some of you likes a bit of a retro touch :-)

  Also, I have another nostalgia problem: After making copies of a
  few
  relevant pages, I think I should finally get rid of my German
  MS-DOS
  4.01 and Windows 3.1 handbooks. Any good ideas for ritual
  destruction?
  Or is anybody still interested in that old stuff? ;-)

  Harald, thank you for your offer to extract data from my CP/M
  floppies!

  Going through the link list from Rugxulo, I found out that both
  cpmtools
  and 22DISK offer dozens of possible formats, but to my surprise,
  none
  of them seemed to work?? However, *AnaDisk* is able to check
  which types
  and numbers of sectors exist on each track of a floppy and
  assuming that
  using Win98 as host OS was acceptable, it manages to extract a
  confusing
  pile of sectors from each of the CP/M floppies. I still have to
  figure
  out whether there is sense in that data or whether I should
  rather seek
  help from Harald and his special hardware. For now, I will pause
  attempts
  to extract the floppy contents more thoroughly until new ideas
  pop up or
  until I find out that AnaDisk missed too much of the contents.
  Apparently
  the floppies were 40x8x1 or 40x8x2 with 512 bytes per sector,
  often with
  some un-numbered sectors here and sectors with data errors
  there? While
  almost all MS DOS formatted floppies still worked well - after
  35 years!

  At the risk of only being able to read, but not reliably write
  or format
  360k disks in the future, I still plan to *throw away* my 360k
  drive and
  keep only the 1200k drive (just in a drawer). Nobody seemed to
  want the
  360k drive or my second 1200k drive yet ;-)

  Cheers, Eric

  PS: I also still have the original MS-DOS 4.01 floppies, but
  prefer to
  use the original MS-DOS 5.00 diskettes in 3.5 inch in case any
  need for
  any MS-DOS should ever arise again in the future. And there is
  Win 3.1!



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Hello!

Why destroy the manuals?

You can give them to some Institution for preservation, they are a piece of
computer history or you can frame them and put on the wall of your office.


Yes!  Please send them somewhere to be scanned and OCRed!  Get in touch 
with Al Kossow of the Computer History Museum in Sunnyvale CA.  See 
http://www.bitsavers.org/ and http://www.bitsavers.org/.


--
David Griffith
d...@661.org


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Re: [Freedos-user] Floppy fetish search

[Eric Auer]

Hi Joao,

As Microsoft software has been sold with the vast majority
of all computers ever sold, I expect enough of the dozens
of millions of German MS DOS 4.01 and Windows 3.1 manuals
to be available as historical documents so the world could
get by without mine, but if anybody wants them, tell me :-D

Cheers, Eric

PS: Also let me know if you know of nearby (e.g. Germany or
surrounding countries) nice computer museums, I am in touch
with some really fancy hardware items for exhibitions :-)

> Hello!
> 
> Why destroy the manuals?
> 
> You can give them to some Institution for preservation, they are a piece of
> computer history or you can frame them and put on the wall of your office.




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Re: [Freedos-user] Floppy fetish search

[Joao Silva]

Hello!

Why destroy the manuals?

You can give them to some Institution for preservation, they are a piece of
computer history or you can frame them and put on the wall of your office.

On Thu, Oct 8, 2020 at 1:10 PM E. Auer  wrote:

>
> Hi everybody,
>
> > I don't need the actual floppies - but I'd love to have a photo of
> > them.
>
> Interesting thought :-) Might take a moment, but good idea. I also like
> the hard blue plastic boxes in which Inmac sold the floppies.
>
> In the meantime, my offer has grown by 20 small 3.5 inch diskettes, as
> well as various storage boxes for big and small diskettes. Actually one
> can use those for 5.25 inch diskettes to organize CD or DVD, in case
> some of you likes a bit of a retro touch :-)
>
> Also, I have another nostalgia problem: After making copies of a few
> relevant pages, I think I should finally get rid of my German MS-DOS
> 4.01 and Windows 3.1 handbooks. Any good ideas for ritual destruction?
> Or is anybody still interested in that old stuff? ;-)
>
> Harald, thank you for your offer to extract data from my CP/M floppies!
>
> Going through the link list from Rugxulo, I found out that both cpmtools
> and 22DISK offer dozens of possible formats, but to my surprise, none
> of them seemed to work?? However, *AnaDisk* is able to check which types
> and numbers of sectors exist on each track of a floppy and assuming that
> using Win98 as host OS was acceptable, it manages to extract a confusing
> pile of sectors from each of the CP/M floppies. I still have to figure
> out whether there is sense in that data or whether I should rather seek
> help from Harald and his special hardware. For now, I will pause
> attempts
> to extract the floppy contents more thoroughly until new ideas pop up or
> until I find out that AnaDisk missed too much of the contents.
> Apparently
> the floppies were 40x8x1 or 40x8x2 with 512 bytes per sector, often with
> some un-numbered sectors here and sectors with data errors there? While
> almost all MS DOS formatted floppies still worked well - after 35 years!
>
> At the risk of only being able to read, but not reliably write or format
> 360k disks in the future, I still plan to *throw away* my 360k drive and
> keep only the 1200k drive (just in a drawer). Nobody seemed to want the
> 360k drive or my second 1200k drive yet ;-)
>
> Cheers, Eric
>
> PS: I also still have the original MS-DOS 4.01 floppies, but prefer to
> use the original MS-DOS 5.00 diskettes in 3.5 inch in case any need for
> any MS-DOS should ever arise again in the future. And there is Win 3.1!
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-user] Floppy fetish search

[Harald Arnesen]

E. Auer [08.10.2020 13:48]:

> Harald, thank you for your offer to extract data from my CP/M floppies!
> 
> Going through the link list from Rugxulo, I found out that both cpmtools
> and 22DISK offer dozens of possible formats, but to my surprise, none
> of them seemed to work?? However, *AnaDisk* is able to check which types
> and numbers of sectors exist on each track of a floppy and assuming that
> using Win98 as host OS was acceptable, it manages to extract a confusing
> pile of sectors from each of the CP/M floppies. I still have to figure
> out whether there is sense in that data or whether I should rather seek
> help from Harald and his special hardware. For now, I will pause 
> attempts

I tried the Kryoflux, but wasn't able to read my testdisks. It may be
that the floppy drive is bad. I think I have a couple others lying
somewhere, but I have to go through some boxes to find them.
-- 
Hilsen Harald


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Re: [Freedos-user] Floppy fetish search

[TK Chia]

Hello Eric,


In addition, I have found a small number of floppy
disks in CP/M format, which are very likely readable
using some of the drives here, but I do not know HOW
to read them, software wise. I cannot even use dd to
make a diskimage, probably different sector sizes?


In case it helps: I came across a blog post about extracting files from
CP/M disks with weird sector sizes:

https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/2017-04-15-adventures-with-an-8-inch-disk-drive-part3.htm

Thank you!

--
https://github.com/tkchia


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Re: [Freedos-user] Floppy fetish search

[E. Auer]

Hi everybody,

I don't need the actual floppies - but I'd love to have a photo of 
them.


Interesting thought :-) Might take a moment, but good idea. I also like
the hard blue plastic boxes in which Inmac sold the floppies.

In the meantime, my offer has grown by 20 small 3.5 inch diskettes, as
well as various storage boxes for big and small diskettes. Actually one
can use those for 5.25 inch diskettes to organize CD or DVD, in case
some of you likes a bit of a retro touch :-)

Also, I have another nostalgia problem: After making copies of a few
relevant pages, I think I should finally get rid of my German MS-DOS
4.01 and Windows 3.1 handbooks. Any good ideas for ritual destruction?
Or is anybody still interested in that old stuff? ;-)

Harald, thank you for your offer to extract data from my CP/M floppies!

Going through the link list from Rugxulo, I found out that both cpmtools
and 22DISK offer dozens of possible formats, but to my surprise, none
of them seemed to work?? However, *AnaDisk* is able to check which types
and numbers of sectors exist on each track of a floppy and assuming that
using Win98 as host OS was acceptable, it manages to extract a confusing
pile of sectors from each of the CP/M floppies. I still have to figure
out whether there is sense in that data or whether I should rather seek
help from Harald and his special hardware. For now, I will pause 
attempts

to extract the floppy contents more thoroughly until new ideas pop up or
until I find out that AnaDisk missed too much of the contents. 
Apparently

the floppies were 40x8x1 or 40x8x2 with 512 bytes per sector, often with
some un-numbered sectors here and sectors with data errors there? While
almost all MS DOS formatted floppies still worked well - after 35 years!

At the risk of only being able to read, but not reliably write or format
360k disks in the future, I still plan to *throw away* my 360k drive and
keep only the 1200k drive (just in a drawer). Nobody seemed to want the
360k drive or my second 1200k drive yet ;-)

Cheers, Eric

PS: I also still have the original MS-DOS 4.01 floppies, but prefer to
use the original MS-DOS 5.00 diskettes in 3.5 inch in case any need for
any MS-DOS should ever arise again in the future. And there is Win 3.1!



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Re: [Freedos-user] Floppy fetish search

[Jim Hall]

I don't need the actual floppies - but I'd love to have a photo of them. I
also teach a class on Management Information Systems, and I sometimes talk
about computing history. Would be good to have a few more photos of old
media to include.

You can email me offlist.


Jim

On Mon, Oct 5, 2020 at 3:56 PM E. Auer  wrote:

>
> Hi users :-)
>
> While sorting through some old stuff, I have collected:
>
> Circa 30 classic 5.25 inch 360k floppy disks, half of
> which were not yet formatted, but are formatted now
>
> Circa 9 classic 5.25 inch 1200k floppy disks, also
> empty and formatted
>
> And I have found that I have no mainboard which still
> understands 360k drives in the BIOS, so I have a PC10
> 360k floppy drive left over and will keep one of my
> two 1200k floppy drives here.
>
> Costs for all the above: Basically zero, but it would
> be nice to pay the postage. Would be nice to keep the
> things in use instead of throwing them to the waste.
>
> In addition, I have found a small number of floppy
> disks in CP/M format, which are very likely readable
> using some of the drives here, but I do not know HOW
> to read them, software wise. I cannot even use dd to
> make a diskimage, probably different sector sizes?
>
> So if anybody would like some of the empty disks or
> that PC-10 360k drive (I think you can make music by
> connecting drives to microcontrollers ;-)) please let
> me know. Also, if anybody can help me to extract the
> data from those CP/M floppies, I would be happy, too!
>
> Please let me know when you are interested in any of
> the above or would like to help. Thank you!
>
> Cheers, Eric (Germany)
>
> PS: I also have some fancy 5.25 inch boxes for storing
> 10 floppies each, made from plastic. Probably nice for
> mailing the floppies around.
>
> PPS: I have a LARGE amount of non-empty 360k disks, too,
> but am too lazy to format them, so I just copied their
> contents and plan to throw those away soon, after all.
> Next, I will be processing some of my old 1.44MB disks.
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-user] Floppy fetish search

[Rugxulo]

Hi again,

On Tue, Oct 6, 2020 at 3:43 AM Rugxulo  wrote:
>
> On Mon, Oct 5, 2020 at 3:56 PM E. Auer  wrote:
> >
> > Also, if anybody can help me to extract the
> > data from those CP/M floppies, I would be happy, too!
>
> I never used CP/M, so I know little about it (beyond its obvious
> pre-DOS status), but would this help??
>
> * http://www.seasip.info/Unix/LibDsk/

It also seems John Elliott has a dedicated CP/M page with tons of info:

* http://www.seasip.info/Cpm/index.html


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Re: [Freedos-user] Floppy fetish search

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Mon, Oct 5, 2020 at 3:56 PM E. Auer  wrote:
>
> In addition, I have found a small number of floppy
> disks in CP/M format, which are very likely readable
> using some of the drives here, but I do not know HOW
> to read them, software wise. I cannot even use dd to
> make a diskimage, probably different sector sizes?
>
> Also, if anybody can help me to extract the
> data from those CP/M floppies, I would be happy, too!

I never used CP/M, so I know little about it (beyond its obvious
pre-DOS status), but would this help??

* http://www.seasip.info/Unix/LibDsk/

"
LIBDSK is a library for accessing discs and disc image files. It is
intended for use in:

* Emulator tools - converting between real floppy discs and disc
images, as CPCTRANS / PCWTRANS do under DOS.
* Filesystem utilities - CPMTOOLS is configurable to use LIBDSK, thus
allowing the use of CPMTOOLS on emulator .DSK images. To do this,
install LIBDSK and then build CPMTOOLS, using "./configure
--with-libdsk". For CPMTOOLS 1.9 or 2.0, you will also need to apply
this patch.
* Emulators - it is possible to use LIBDSK as part of an emulator's
floppy controller emulation, thus giving the emulator transparent
access to .DSK files or real discs.
"

Or this??

"YAZE-AG - Yet Another Z80 Emulator by AG (V 2.40.5 / V 2.30.3)"

* http://www.mathematik.uni-ulm.de/users/ag/yaze-ag/

> Cheers, Eric (Germany)

Happy German-American Day.


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[Freedos-user] Floppy fetish search

[E. Auer]

Hi users :-)

While sorting through some old stuff, I have collected:

Circa 30 classic 5.25 inch 360k floppy disks, half of
which were not yet formatted, but are formatted now

Circa 9 classic 5.25 inch 1200k floppy disks, also
empty and formatted

And I have found that I have no mainboard which still
understands 360k drives in the BIOS, so I have a PC10
360k floppy drive left over and will keep one of my
two 1200k floppy drives here.

Costs for all the above: Basically zero, but it would
be nice to pay the postage. Would be nice to keep the
things in use instead of throwing them to the waste.

In addition, I have found a small number of floppy
disks in CP/M format, which are very likely readable
using some of the drives here, but I do not know HOW
to read them, software wise. I cannot even use dd to
make a diskimage, probably different sector sizes?

So if anybody would like some of the empty disks or
that PC-10 360k drive (I think you can make music by
connecting drives to microcontrollers ;-)) please let
me know. Also, if anybody can help me to extract the
data from those CP/M floppies, I would be happy, too!

Please let me know when you are interested in any of
the above or would like to help. Thank you!

Cheers, Eric (Germany)

PS: I also have some fancy 5.25 inch boxes for storing
10 floppies each, made from plastic. Probably nice for
mailing the floppies around.

PPS: I have a LARGE amount of non-empty 360k disks, too,
but am too lazy to format them, so I just copied their
contents and plan to throw those away soon, after all.
Next, I will be processing some of my old 1.44MB disks.



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