[Hidden-tech] More packrat stuff... files off an ms-dos system?

Jan Werner jwerner at jwdp.com
Tue Jun 10 17:34:37 EDT 2008


If it starts up, you should be able to get what you want. The Epson 
Equity II+ came with a 40MB hard drive, but DOS 3.3 only supports 
logical drives up to 32MB, so you probably have a 32MB C: drive. It 
should have 640Kb of user memory (remember, Bill Gates assured us that 
no-one would ever need more than 640kb of RAM).

The product manual for that system is still available online from Epson 
at http://files.support.epson.com/pdf/e2p___/e2p___pg.pdf and it 
indicates that the fdc controller supports both DD (720K) and HD 
(1.44MB) 3.5" floppies, so you could simply take the route of installing 
a 3.5" drive. You can get a bare 3.5" floppy drive with a 5.25" bezel 
for less than $20 including S/H from any number of online merchants.

If you have 5.25" floppies available to write to, I can definitely read 
them and could copy them to either 3.5" floppies or even a CD-R.

WordPerfect files are not ASCII, or rather, they contain ASCII text 
mixed with binary control and pointer information. While you could 
probably extract the ASCII and eventually reconstruct the text (it's not 
often stored sequentially within the file), that shouldn't be necessary 
as there are a number of programs around that can read most of the old 
DOS WordPerfect formats, including many versions of MS Office.

Jan Werner
___________


B. Kimo Lee wrote:
> Hi Jan and Greg,
> 
> I ran the thing a couple of years ago and it booted up fine. I'm going 
> to get it out and start it up again just to make sure.
> Hah! I bet I'm going to have to take photos of the screens and 
> transcribe the stuff. Interesting problem though, huh?
> I think the floppy drive might be the answer. I might have one of the 
> old Double Density disks in a box. And I have a USB SmartDisk floppy 
> drive. Do you think it will read the old DD disk? Though, there must 
> have been a reason why I didn't try that before. Oh, I remember, it has 
> a 5.25" floppy drive. The real "floppy" disc.
> 
> My how computers have evolved. Yes, I think the hard drive is only 30mb. 
> With 10k of memory!
> If I remember correctly, the files are Wordperfect files. Since it's 
> MS-DOS, does that mean they are already ascii text?
> It'll be a stroll down memory lane to turn that thing on... from NYC to 
> Hawai'i and back.
> 
> Thanks,
> Kimo
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Jun 10, 2008, at 12:33 PM, Jan Werner wrote:
> 
>> The 40 MB (that's Megabytes, not Gigabytes) HD in the Epson Equity II+ 
>> probably had an ST506 or ST412 interface -- almost certainly not an 
>> IDE interface -- which means that it will not work in any external 
>> drive enclosure you can buy today.
>>
>> Any of the proposals for using a serial or parallel transport protocol 
>> won't work unless you have some way of getting the software onto the 
>> system in the first place, which means having either communications 
>> software already installed on the HD (and knowing how to use it), or 
>> having a working floppy drive, in which case there isn't much of a 
>> problem in the first place.
>>
>> I used to have Laplink-like program, the name of which now escapes me, 
>> that could install itself from a remote computer over a null-modem or 
>> reverse parallel cable (it worked with Laplink cables) but that would 
>> require having a second computer running MS-DOS to start up from.
>>
>> It might be worth finding out if the Epson can even boot from the HD 
>> in the first place. If not, the HD may be dead. The only way to find 
>> out would be to boot from a floppy and see if one could read from the 
>> HD. If the answer is yes, then the data may be retrievable. If not, 
>> the only option would be a drive recovery firm with the ability to 
>> access older disks. Ontrack might be able to do it, but it would cost 
>> a fortune.
>>
>> Jan Werner
>> ________________
>>
>> Greg Major wrote:
>>>  ** The author of this post was a Good Dobee.
>>>  ** You too can help the group
>>>  ** Fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
>>>  ** If you did, we all thank you.
>>> Don't make it so complicated. Get an external drive enclosure from 
>>> Staples (approx. $30.00) and put your old hard disk in it. Then it 
>>> will plug into any machine through the usb port and you will be able 
>>> to access all of the files on the hard disk. Just make sure you get 
>>> the right size enclosure.
>>> B. Kimo Lee wrote:
>>>>  ** The author of this post was a Good Dobee.
>>>>  ** You too can help the group
>>>>  ** Fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
>>>>  ** If you did, we all thank you.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> Steven Solomon's "pack-rat" post inspired me to move on this legacy 
>>>> issue.
>>>> I have an ancient Espon Equity II+ (MS-DOS) on which are some 
>>>> original songs my ex wrote years ago. No, she doesn't have hard-copy 
>>>> printouts. Yes, it has parallel ports!!
>>>> Thought I'd see if anybody has some thoughts on how to transfer the 
>>>> files onto an external drive of some sort?
>>>> Is this even possible? I'm really curious if some of you ultra-geeks 
>>>> can recommend something. I'd like to recycle that thing and get it 
>>>> out of my basement once and for all. lol!
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Kimo
>>>>
>>>>
> 
> 


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