[Coco] Backup of HDB-DOS drives

Sat Feb 11 16:21:24 EST 2012

Apologies to the list.  I thought Mark sent me this message directly.  I hit 
reply without noting it came through the list.  Have a great weekend.

-Steve --

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Ostrom" <smostrom7 at comcast.net>
To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Saturday, February 11, 2012 2:38 PM
Subject: Re: [Coco] Backup of HDB-DOS drives

> It yours for the taking.  It was just a fun project.  In case anyone asks, 
> there is no real source code for the ML program, except for the data 
> statements in the accompanying BASIC file.  I hand wrote the program, and 
> hand-aseembled it sitting at my picnic table at the cabin.  That was a 
> really fun process.  Not many people I know would ever hand-assemble a 
> program, including counting back to branch points, etc.  You will see 
> three files on the disk.  One is the "source" code BASIC program, in case 
> someone really wants to play with it.  The second file is a BASIC loader 
> program that initializes the hard drives and loads and executes the ML 
> program.  The third file is the ML program itself.  Only the ML program 
> runs once you start the process, so the time to copy 256 drives is about 
> 1/2 the time needed for a BASIC program.  I thought the ML version would 
> be much faster, but most of the sloweness is in the read/write function of 
> the drives.
>
> The program itself is not very fancy.  No nice user-friendly interface, 
> but it does its job of copying from SCSI drive 0 to SCSI drive 1.  I even 
> have a rough error reporting routine in thr ML, but I've never forced an 
> error to see if it would report properly.  There is a running display on 
> monitor, showingh the drive and sector numbers as it progresses.  It sems 
> to copy both RSBASIC and OS-9 disks without any issues.
>
> -Steve-
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Mark Marlette" <mmarlette at frontiernet.net>
> To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, February 07, 2012 10:33 AM
> Subject: Re: [Coco] Backup of HDB-DOS drives
>
>
>> Steve,
>>
>> Most definitely.
>>
>> You have probably sent it before, with your permission, we would like to 
>> include it as part of our distribution.
>>
>> Thanks!!!!
>>
>> Mark
>> http://www.cloud9tech.com
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Steve Ostrom" <smostrom7 at comcast.net>
>> To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
>> Sent: Tuesday, February 7, 2012 10:21:54 AM
>> Subject: Re: [Coco] Backup of HDB-DOS drives
>>
>> Jim, my Coco system is set up at our family cabin (think unheated -
>> Minnesota winter), but I actually was able to make a floppy copy of my
>> backup diskette over the weekend. (Coco's are incredible!) If you give me
>> your address, I'll mail a copy diskette to you. I don't have any way of
>> making it into a .dsk file and sending it by e-mail. I could not find the
>> BASIC backup program I remember getting from Boisy, but I'll look for 
>> this
>> come Spring.
>>
>> Mark, did you want a floppy copy as well to play with at Cloud-9?
>>
>> -- Steve -- 
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Jim Hickle" <jlhickle at yahoo.com>
>> To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
>> Sent: Friday, January 20, 2012 11:50 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Coco] Backup of HDB-DOS drives
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --- On Fri, 1/20/12, Steve Ostrom <smostrom7 at comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>> From: Steve Ostrom <smostrom7 at comcast.net>
>> Subject: Re: [Coco] Backup of HDB-DOS drives
>> To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
>> Date: Friday, January 20, 2012, 1:30 PM
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Hickle" <jlhickle at yahoo.com>
>> To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
>> Sent: Monday, January 16, 2012 10:59 PM
>> Subject: [Coco] Backup of HDB-DOS drives
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> I'd like to backup HDB-DOS drives from one device to another. I have SCSI
>> drives. Perhaps I could use BACKUP in a loop but don't know if it's 
>> possible
>> for HDB-DOS to address two different devices.
>>
>> I'm thinking of using NITROS9 with a device descriptor set up for source 
>> and
>> destination HDB-DOS, open each as a raw device, and copying 256 * 35 * 18
>> bytes. Do we have a program like Linux's 'dd' ?
>>
>>
>> Jim, maybe I'm confused about your goal, but Cloud-9 has a BASIC backup
>> command on their HDB-DOS disk to do this. It does take quite awhile, 
>> maybe
>> 3-4 hours for 256 drives if I recall correctly. It backs up from SCSI 0 
>> to
>> SCSI 1, for example. I wrote an assembly version that does the same 
>> thing,
>> and is quite a bit faster (like the difference between snails and 
>> turtles!).
>> With my assembly version, you have no real choices, but can only backup 
>> all
>> 256 drives from one SCSI drive to the other. Maybe you can get this BASIC
>> backup program from Mark or Boisy. If it works for you, and you want a 
>> full
>> backup, I can send you my faster assembly version.
>>
>> -Steve-
>>
>> Perhaps the BASIC program is DSK2DSK.BAS ? It's listed in the docs on 
>> their
>> website, but it isn't on the disk I bought (v 1.1B it think). The Nitros9
>> 'backup' command will copy a .DSK file to a device, but not the other way
>> around. I would be most thankful for a copy of your assembly program. I'm
>> sure it's much faster than whatever C program I'd put together.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> jim
>>
>>
>> -- 
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