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Looking for "Books That Work: Wiring Circuit Planner and Simulator" Software


unexpectedbill

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On 8/15/2017 at 10:51 AM, jaclaz said:

If the OP actually has a DOS machine and a "real" floppy, an attempt to make a raw image of it (with the read only tab set) costs nothing or next to nothing.

There is a particular program (not very famous) that over the years has proved to be very good, called Venus, some info (and more related tools) here:

and in links therein.

@98SE

You would be surprised by the amount of "old" gear some MSFN members have.

jaclaz

Could you be specific of any MSFN members with a tremendous amount of "old" gear?

And you would be surprised by mine as well (cough) warehouse. ;)

Curious what was your first computer?

What are some of your oldest computers you still own?

Any non PC based computers?

What sort of floppy copying hardware do you have?

 

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I provided a link to a thread that should have brought you to here:

but Multibooter is just an example.

Sinclair ZX80

Yes, self assembled and soldered ... and we LIKED IT:


https://tinyapps.org/blog/misc/200702250700_why_in_my_day.html

Lots of old stuff here and there, oldest (still working just fine last time I checked) is probably a 1992 or so Epson with a 286 processor, but I have also *somewhere* an almost complete Sinclair set, if I recall correctly a ZX81, a couple Spectrums, a QL, a few notebooks (some only partially working), and almost countless PC's of the 1995-2010 period.

No particular floppy copying hardware, only good ol' floppy drives. 

jaclaz

 

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2 hours ago, jaclaz said:

I provided a link to a thread that should have brought you to here:

but Multibooter is just an example.

Sinclair ZX80

Yes, self assembled and soldered ... and we LIKED IT:


https://tinyapps.org/blog/misc/200702250700_why_in_my_day.html

Lots of old stuff here and there, oldest (still working just fine last time I checked) is probably a 1992 or so Epson with a 286 processor, but I have also *somewhere* an almost complete Sinclair set, if I recall correctly a ZX81, a couple Spectrums, a QL, a few notebooks (some only partially working), and almost countless PC's of the 1995-2010 period.

No particular floppy copying hardware, only good ol' floppy drives. 

jaclaz

 

Yes I took a look at that thread already but I wanted to get more insight into your own collection before responding in more detail.  I was more interested in the actual MSFN users that had the older copy protection duplication hardware and are still active would have been more beneficial for the OP.  I have such gear so if any others exist still around could also help.

As for the floppy disks condition.  I have to disagree since I still have older 3.5" floppies going back to 1987 that still are readable.  It depends on how you stored the floppy disks in a safe environment.  Only the no brand name cheaper 720KB disks tended to have a higher failure rate from memory than say TDK or Maxell. I even have some 8 inch disks from 3M still sealed in the box but these won't work with modern PCs at all unless someone comes up with a special interface to at least a standard 34 pin Floppy controller.  If you're dealing with the 5 1/4" ones you need to keep these in a disk jacket and then place into a disk box at the minimum.  The 5 1/4" I would imagine has higher failure rates as over the years even digging back to them a decade ago you will find some just have given up or crop up with CRC errors.  Then you will have to resort to cleaner methods of extracting the data off the disk which is very time consuming.

The micro floppy 3 1/2" diskettes are more durable since it is encased so dust and accidental finger print smudges can't damage the media.  Plus the sturdiness of the plastic it also less likely you'd bend the disk like a 5 1/4" which can accidentally happen like locking the 5 1/4" drive and trying to insert the disk.

Most of the "programs" you listed in that forum topic are Windows based imagers good for unprotected disks which probably would freak out when encountering a copy protected disk.  Try using DiskCopy back in the day and you'll know what I mean.  Even the DOS based copy protection copiers probably won't work on any modern computers and a lot of these I've tested have limitations of which ones could be copied successfully.  Some of the very old school duplication programs were broken/nonfunctional because of the speed of the machine an issue that MultiBoot encountered which no one clued him in.

My "old gear" is more hardcore than just software based copy protection duplication software since it actually physical hardware that does bit by bit duplication so it retains the copy protection scheme making it appear as the original disk would (a virtual clone).  Also this equipment does not function on modern computers which makes it less likely you will find the combination of a MSFN user with the original disk duplication hardware combined with the proper computer combined with the actual experience of using the dupcliation software and most importantly the willingness to offer their time to do it. :yes::dubbio::no:

As for your older hardware.  286, yes some of my IBM PC/XT stuff predates yours.  Although I had a nice Epson laptop 386 16MHz.  I still have a dozen of these XT motherboards sitting around in the garage never used.  But I have a few 286 AT but nothing special (had a turbo switch) to slow it down to PC/XT speeds.  Some 386 which I liked the most and the 486 I got plenty of those and maybe 20 or so new motherboards old stock in case I need to do some build in the distant future but my P4 can take care of almost everything that the 486 could do and more.

I got a warehouse of CPUs some are older 8088 and 8086 and the various 286-MHz speeds of AMD and Intel, then the 386 mainly Intel SX and DX but I'm sure some AMD in the mix.  Too much old computer memory from that time.  The 486 I have trays of these 16MHz and up.  The Pentiums 1s I think some 60MHz and 75MHz... I wasn't too much of a fan of the Pentium 1s and later until P3 and P4.

I also have other computers aside from IBM, Apple, Mac, Atari, Commodore/Amiga and others of different models.

The nice thing you have is the ZX81, a couple Spectrums.  Most of those computers never made it to the USA so later I will try and get them off eBay and play around.  As for floppy drives I have a bunch of the original Teac models 360KB and 1.2MB still sealed in the baggie with the disk protector insert.  A bunch of 720KB and 1.44MB but these are quite common.  One 2.88EHD just to mess with.  The only shame today is they never bothered to make a 360KB and 1.2MB USB powered floppy drive so these are going to be really hard to interface on modern computers.

LS-120 I bought several of these before they got shelved.  I only had wished they became popular instead they fizzled away probably due to the CD-rom moreso than the Zip drives competition.  The only problem is they still used an IDE interface instead of the floppy controller.  So you needed a BIOS that could boot from it.

Edited by 98SE
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Good, but you carefully avoided to state the only relevant info, so I have to ask WHAT is your "old gear"?

A Central Point Option Board?

A Deluxe one?

Or somethin newer, such as:

A DiscFerret?

A CatWeasel?

A KryoFlux?

jaclaz

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  • 6 years later...

Hi, I have that software. It works great. I put it away and after a dozen PCs later I never reinstalled.  I'll hunt it down in my old software box.  Contact me:  tjjjc2@yahoo.com thats: t j j j c 2 @yahoo.com

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