24 Jun
2019
24 Jun
'19
5:52 a.m.
Does the AT&T have a serial port?
Kermit would be the way I'd go, but since you say you have nothing with
serial ports, that could be a problem. A cheap usb-to-serial port might
be in order. Then you can run Kermit 95 on a Windows 7 or earlier
machine. (might work on later OS's too, but it's not supported)
The flip side is how to get Kermit onto the DOS machine.
I used a floppy recovery service a while back to read my old Commodore
64/PET disks - he was relatively inexpensive, and very responsive.
http://retrofloppy.com/
On 6/23/2019 7:10 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.
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.
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 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.
Thanks,
Mary Ann