11-15-2015, 02:35 PM
I have been going through the PC software I have been collecting since 1982 when I got my first Kaypro II; I've finished with the DOS titles and have about half-finished the CP/M titles. I've been amazed at what has survived. And what I've learned, much of which has been documented elsewhere on this site.
My principal tools have been MS-DOS 6.22, ImageDisk, 22Disk and the SuperCard Pro, a '486 system with an Award BIOS that lets me run both a 5.25 and a 3.5 inch drive concurrently, and a couple of TEACs, 360k and 1.2Mb. Plus lots of isopropyl alcohol and Q-tips: A number of jackets had to be slit (at the end away from the head window) and some recalcitrant disks could be accessed after carefully wiping them down and putting them back into their sleeve.
My objective has been to create an archive on DVD of all of the disks' contents in a one-disk-per-folder format. Failing that, I wanted to make a backup of the disk itself.
Only a few disks could not be transferred successfully. One set, Arakis Advantage Algebra Volume 1 (4 disks, each self-booting format not recognized by DOS), ImageDisk copied successfully. One was the original distribution disk of VP Planner, a Lotus spreadsheet clone issued by Osborne's Paperback Software publishing company. That had a copy protection scheme that ImageDisk could not handle but which SCP copied with IBM 360 settings, 41 tracks and index sync.
The last was a distribution disk of the Spracklins' Sargon chess game, with Sargon, self-booting, on one side and some games on the other, "flip" side. This was a double-notched disk, in other words. DOS could copy the games but I had to use the SCP to copy Sargon, using C-64/128 settings and index sync. I gather that this is single-sided but it would be helpful if the menu indicated that fact.
My work-flow was to run SCP on a Win7 64-bit machine, in disk copy mode, and test the results on the DOS machine. This way I could see immediately if my settings were successful. It occurred to me that it might be nice to be able to save the image at that point rahter than having to re-do the scan with the output changed to image file. Just a thought.
Anyway, my thanks to you all for your help and suggestions. Please let me know if I can repay with suggestions of my own. And if you are considering buying the SuperCard Pro, my advice is to quit considering and get one.
-CH-
My principal tools have been MS-DOS 6.22, ImageDisk, 22Disk and the SuperCard Pro, a '486 system with an Award BIOS that lets me run both a 5.25 and a 3.5 inch drive concurrently, and a couple of TEACs, 360k and 1.2Mb. Plus lots of isopropyl alcohol and Q-tips: A number of jackets had to be slit (at the end away from the head window) and some recalcitrant disks could be accessed after carefully wiping them down and putting them back into their sleeve.
My objective has been to create an archive on DVD of all of the disks' contents in a one-disk-per-folder format. Failing that, I wanted to make a backup of the disk itself.
Only a few disks could not be transferred successfully. One set, Arakis Advantage Algebra Volume 1 (4 disks, each self-booting format not recognized by DOS), ImageDisk copied successfully. One was the original distribution disk of VP Planner, a Lotus spreadsheet clone issued by Osborne's Paperback Software publishing company. That had a copy protection scheme that ImageDisk could not handle but which SCP copied with IBM 360 settings, 41 tracks and index sync.
The last was a distribution disk of the Spracklins' Sargon chess game, with Sargon, self-booting, on one side and some games on the other, "flip" side. This was a double-notched disk, in other words. DOS could copy the games but I had to use the SCP to copy Sargon, using C-64/128 settings and index sync. I gather that this is single-sided but it would be helpful if the menu indicated that fact.
My work-flow was to run SCP on a Win7 64-bit machine, in disk copy mode, and test the results on the DOS machine. This way I could see immediately if my settings were successful. It occurred to me that it might be nice to be able to save the image at that point rahter than having to re-do the scan with the output changed to image file. Just a thought.
Anyway, my thanks to you all for your help and suggestions. Please let me know if I can repay with suggestions of my own. And if you are considering buying the SuperCard Pro, my advice is to quit considering and get one.
-CH-