24 Jun
2019
24 Jun
'19
5:57 a.m.
On 6/23/19 5:10 PM, Mary Ann Horton Gmail wrote:
Hunting around through my ancient stuff today, I ran
across a 5.25"
floppy drive labeled as having old Usenet maps. These may have
historical interest.
Intriguing.
First off, I don't recognize the handwriting on
the disk. It's not mine.
Does anyone recognize it? (pic attached)
I dug out my AT&T 6300 (XT clone) from the garage and booted it up. The
floppy reads just fine. It has files with .MAP extension, which are
ASCII Usenet maps from 1980 to 1984, and some .BBM files which are ASCII
Usenet backbone maps up to 1987.
There is also a file whose extension is .GRF from 1983 which claims to
be a graphical Usenet map. Does anyone have any idea what GRF is or
what this map might be? I recall Brian Reid having a plotter-based
Usenet geographic map in 84 or 85.
Hum.
I'd like to copy these files off for posterity.
They read on DOS just
fine. Is there a current best practice for copying off files? I would
have guessed I'd need a to use the serial port, but my old PC has DOS
2.11 (not much serial copying software on it) and I don't have anything
live with a serial port anymore. And it might not help with the GRF file.
I wonder if you could get away with something as simple as a null modem
cable and the following commands:
Source:
copy a:\file COM1
Destination:
copy COM1 c:\file
Does the source machine have a hard drive?
Do you have a blank (sacrificial) floppy disk?
Can you copy the files anywhere so that they are in more than one place?
Do you have a printer that you could create a (hexadecimal) printout?
Do you have a machine that can accept a USB-to-Serial adapter?
What about something like a Raspberry Pi? It has a serial port (though
it needs a level shifter).
I took some photos of the screen with the earliest
maps (the ones that
fit on one screen.) So it's an option to type things in, at least for
the early ASCII ones.
I'd be interested in seeing them. Do you have a place that you can
upload them to?
--
Grant. . . .
unix || die