Date   : Tue, 17 Apr 1990 18:57:30 GMT
From   : omni!curt@uunet.uu.net (Curt Mayer)
Subject: DOS <----> CPM copying for obscure m/c

In article <3337@minyos.xx.rmit.oz> rxxqva@minyos.xx.rmit.oz (Quentin van
Abbe) writes:
>I presently maintain for an outside group an aged EXIDY Sorcerer running
CPM2.2
>I would like to transfer software back and forth via a DOS machine, but try as
>I may I cannot read my CPM disks on the PC. I've used SYDEX's ANADISK and
>disc copy routines, but neither analysis nor copy works. Nor do any of the 
>other copy or analyse routines I've been able to locate.

this fails for a very simple reason. if this is a exidy disk system, it
uses the micropolis disk controllers and drives.  these use 16 sector
hole media. any disk analysis program you have would have to read hard
sectored media.  i have never heard of any non-hardware solution to this.

i have owned an sorcerer, and have hacked the hardware to do 80x24 video,
running at 5.5 mhz. berry ugly. anyway, one person who has full documents,
including schematics and extra rom-pacs, is:

       harold gerbracht
       pulse sciences inc
       600 McCormick Street
       San Leandro, CA 94577
       (415) 632-5100

drop a dime to him and he can fill your ear in a hurry about exidy.
also, you might be able to talk him out of a copy of docs or spare
parts.

re: transfer to dos
2 solutions, 1 hard but fun, 1 easy but boring.
1) get a compupro disk1, plug it into your backplane,
hack the cbios to read/write ibm pcdos format yourself
using DOSDISK.
2) serial cable using pip/xmodem/whatever.

       Curt Mayer
       curt@omni.UUCP curt@omni.com