Uncreative Labs

Joined: 05 Oct 2007 Posts: 24 Location: Catalunya

Hi i am beefing up an old Siemens Nixdorf system trying to set it as a bridge between my old (XT´s) and newer disposable computers.

One of the things i installed was a 1.2 floppy drive i got fooling around.

The drive works fine with 1.2 disks but cannot read or write 360k disks, my 360 disks are ok and work on my 5160. I passed truu the drive a cleaning disk w/out result.

p.s.

my comp now has

486 100 (overdrive)
24 Megs of ram
SCSI HD 1GB
5.25 & 3.5 floppy
CD-RW drive (unntested)
External SCSI Jaz & PCMCIA
LPT Zip 100
Integrated VGA with unknow memory (What got from factory plus 2 memory chips scavenged from a circus logic card) i got 800x600 at 16 mill colors, would round 1.5 - 2 MB

Cheers

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

1.2MB drives were only supposed to read and write 360kb discs IN THEORY. In reality, they only make 360kb discs that can be read by 1.2mb drives. Maybe some of the lower quality drives couldn't even write them at all. So, if you want to transfer files to your XT, you will either need a real 360kb drive, or you will need to invest in a laplink cable.

Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 264 Location: Ohio/USA

I think the tracks laid down by 1.2MB drives are too thin for 360K drives to read reliably (different head sizes or something).

Joined: 27 Jan 2007 Posts: 274 Location: USA

well i stoped by for visit, most my 5.25 floppy drives can read/write 360kb and 1.2mb disk, although, i can recall that i once used a floppy contoller with a chipset that couldn't read 1.2mb disk. If you can try a different floppy controller, then it could work

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

previous post is correct
the tracks on a 1.2 drive are narrower and some 360k drives were sloppily aligned.

if you have NEW , never formatted 360k floppies OR
if you have a bulk ( tape) eraset
format the transfer disks in the `1.2m drive with the /4 option to force a 360k format.
this disks will have a HIGH likelyhood of working in the 360k drive.
remember JUST formatting 360k disks on the 1.2 drive will leave a "rim" of old data on the wide tracks written on the 360 floppy. You must have a clean 360k floppy.

another way is to "install" a 1.44 floppy in the xt.
True the xt cannot deal with a 1.44 floppy but it CAN see and read a 720k floppy and it does not know the difference.
using 720k disks, it will see the 80 track/ 9 sector floppies. it will not format them, they must be formatted in a 286 or higher ( even some 386's were incompatible with some 3.5" floppies) but due to a happy GOOF xt's could see a 720k disk, some AT/286's cound NOT.

if you use an older DOS that does not support
a 3.5" floppy, like dos 2.10 , you can reformat the 3.5" " 720k" disks to 360k.
you MIGHT have to reset the bios/setup in the 486
to "say" that the 3.5" drive ( usuaklly a 1.44 drive)
is a 360k drive, windows is picky dos is not.
there are few problems when using 35" disks
yiu can even boot a xt from a 720k floppy..
there are additional problems as early dos used a simpler FAT and often dos 3.30 would let you go both ways.

a xt formatted mfm or rll drive might work in a newer pc. . bit the 8 bit controller MUST be used.
( the ll fmt between an xt and an at is not the same)
the interleave of the xt drive is 3.4.or 5
the interleave of an at is 3,2,1 ( often 2)
but due to the 8 bit/1`6 bit mishmatch the xt drive with a 8 bit card is very slow, but still faster than a floppy transfer. floppies are still the safest way to go.

phew!
a laplink transfer ver 3,00a works. a 3 wire serial cable ( scrapped female 9 or 25 pin connectors and 3 wires even from a piece of tepehine wire )works, serial transfer can be installed on the SLAVE by the program. a AT i/o card with a 9 pin serial port works in an xt.

been there done it.

Joined: 05 Oct 2007 Posts: 24 Location: Catalunya

wdegroot wrote:

a laplink transfer ver 3,00a works. a 3 wire serial cable ( scrapped female 9 or 25 pin connectors and 3 wires even from a piece of tepehine wire )works, serial transfer can be installed on the SLAVE by the program. a AT i/o card with a 9 pin serial port works in an xt.

been there done it.

Hi, i considered good this option (I connected both computers via Null Modem cable) i must install a terminal program on my 486, but luckily my XT got Electric Desk installed (suite including Terminal) At the moment i didn't get it to work, but "msd" detects the xt (carrier detected).

I would try it this evening...

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

laplink 3 or 4 was up on the www free
if not I can look around and locate my copy and sens it to you'
it is a 60k file vrey small and as I said a 3 wire cable can be used.

Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2007 5:25 pm

Norton commander have a transfer system that works fine just have copy on each machine.

I have different copies of NC if you need but they should be easy to find.

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

if "commander" will permit a "remote install" via serial cable. they it is a good choice.
but if you need to take a copy of the program , put it on a floppy, and carry it over to the XT, then you have a problem. as the original problem was reading files from the xt to the 486
I suppose the 360k drive COULD be installed in the 486
this would be nice if the xt has 2 floppies.
still sending the files from one pc to another via a cable is the most desirable
I would just put a 1.44 floppy ( recognized as a 720k) in the xt
if i didn;t have or could not make a cable.
let us know your sucess or failure.

Joined: 05 Oct 2007 Posts: 24 Location: Catalunya

And what programs permit a Remote Install???

I don´t like to alter my XT with 3.5 floppys or h.heigh, ii got it original and like it this way Wink

.

I got the serial cable connected OK but need to know a remote installable program.

Joined: 19 Apr 2006 Posts: 261 Location: WisConSin

Interlink and interserver from dos 6.22 work just fine and I believe using the right settings from dos on the xt you can send the necessary info via a null modem cable using interlink on the other machine.

Personally I would just remove the 5 1/4" drive from the xt and put it in the more modern computer, copy whatever needs to be on the xt to a disk, get a laplink (preferable) or null modem cable connection up and running.

You will probably find removing the floppy from the xt and putting it in the newer system is probably the easiest way to get properly formatted disks to start out.

Good Luck

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

laplink 3.00 permits remote install with a serial cable.
meaning you don't have toi put a floppy in the drive to get the program on the xt,
I am suggesting that You take a 3.5" floppy drive , either a 720k or a 1.44 drive , preferrably with a solid bottom so it does not short out.
TEMPORARILY sit on top of the floppy drives
and the XT will be able to write to the 3.5" floppy drive as long as you use formatted 720k disks ( not 1.44 formatted disks)
You can use the disk many times as the "narrow
track/wide track" problem that messes things up when trying to read a 360k disk in a 1.2 meg drive is not an issue or not a problem with 3.5" disks

I wan't suggesting that you make any permanent changes to the xt computer, jusy run it for a short while with the cover off.

the other method, using a new or bulk erased 360k floppy JUST FORMATTED in a 360k drive, shoyulkd read properly in a 1.2m drive.
You may have to format or erase the 360k floppy in the 360k drive each time you put new or different files on it. If you delete files in the 1,2 meg drive,
there may still be traces of what was on the disk before. '

the troube is based on the fact r=that he read/write heads in the 1.2 meg drive, are half the width of the 360k drive
( one is 80 tracks the other is 40 tracks)

temporarily using any 3.5" drive in the XT is the simplest and most trouble-free.
just r3emember that the XT does not fully understand 80 track drives and the 3.5" floppy should be formatted in the newer computer.
which dos does the xt use? it needs to be 3,20 or higher for the "temporary 3.5" drive to work.
You can download bootdisks from various versions of dos from www.bootdisk.com, version 3.30 is a good choice.
if you cannot find what yoiu need like laplink , let us know, it was available free on the www a few years ago.

Joined: 05 Oct 2007 Posts: 24 Location: Catalunya

Hi, at last i decided to get a new floppy drive for my 486 (Not capable to connect via laplink) then i can do what i pretend...

I got a Compaq 386 portable don't booting (need setup disk) The compaq floppy is 1.2 Meg, i got the setup disks images, but the images are for 360k floppies (go figure...) My 5.25 drive don't work with 360 k. Solution, get a new drive. Rolling Eyes

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

I know you said you did not want to "disturb" tyhe xt
computer. still easiest is to temprarily inmstall any 3.5" drive on the xt as it will see the drive as a 720k ( 9 sectors and 80 tracks)
know dos 3.30 is ok maybe dos 3.20 ( but 3.20 is buggy) as long as the floppy is formatted as a 720k and not a 1.44m you can read or write effortlessly.
except the floppies will have to be formatted in the 386 or 486.
driver.sys and drivparm will permit the older xt to format 720k disks.

ypu have no email address or I would send the older freeware laplink that was on the www several years ago. wdegroot@ptd.net