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Getting Data off IBM PS/2

D

Dobes

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Sep 26, 2020
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I know this has been covered in several different ways but I haven't found my solution. I have been looking for Laplink but it appears there is no longer a legal version out there and the current versions do not support the old sync cables.

With that said, there is some data I want to get off a few old IBM PS/2 Model 80s. Is the floppy route going to be my only way? I think the hard drives are unique and I know the controller card is unique. Anyone have any thoughts or options?

Thanks in advanced!
 
http://minuszerodegrees.net/transfer/transfer.htm has some tips you can consult.

Being a microchannel system, your options are a bit limited in that you can't just add an ISA network card and connect it to the network. However, if your parallel ports are working, you can use those with a xircom PE3-10BT to add ethernet to your system. You can then use the packet driver and the mTCP suite to stand up an FTP server and then just use FileZilla on windows or mac to download everything recursively. This is much faster than trying to rescue the entire contents onto floppy disks.
 
I always answer these kinds of questions assuming the end user is a novice who doesn't have a second vintage system to run older transfer software on.
 
I'd probably use a parallel port Iomega Zip drive or other parallel port mass storage device. Zip drives are not too hard to come by.
 
Doesn't it have a second IDE port where you can just connect a CF card in an adapter? Then just copy the whole stuff from the HDD to the CF card, which you can easily read with any modern PC.
 
These sorts of IBM PS/2s did not use IDE. They used IBM's wacky ESDI, or SCSI. A quick search to double check also suggests that some model 80s may have also used a ST506 interface hard disk controller. SCSI drives could be removed and imaged on another system, but the other two types necessitate keeping the drive in the system. As a microchannel system, one can not just plop in common expansion cards.
 
Well now, there's a project for someone. A parallel-to-USB setup that allows modern machines to grab data from a vintage parallel port. Maybe it already exists...

How about one that virtualizes the vintage drive as a USB Mass Storage Device?

(I hate programming USB protocol. In spite of the standards, there's always some gotcha with some vendor's implementation. The structures involved are legend. :( )
 
Are there no serial options with a null modem connector and something ubiquitous like Kermit? Yea, it's not parallel speeds, but should be fast enough.
 
Apparently, with modern PCs, the serial port is no more, so a USB-serial converter has to be used. I don't know how well this works with Kermit on, say, W10.

Ideally, one should be able to image the drive, not just get files from it, I'd think.
 
I never had trouble with decent USB-serial adapters. Sure, things are going to be slow, but better than nothing.

Modern terminal programs (such as SyncTerm) exist, so there is no problem using Kermit/XModem/ZModem stuff.

In the past, I have also been successful cloning Norton Commander 5 from within DOSBox onto a vintage system, using a USB-serial adapter.

For me, a null modem cable is always the first option to get working (Ethernet comes second, if available).
 
If anything fails, use RAR for DOS to compress the stuff and span it over multiple floppy disks. RAR can do that automatically for you.
 
I've used these methods in the past: Floppies, parallel Zip drive, interlnk over serial (similar concept to laplink), network adapter

My preferred way is to plug the hard drive directly into another computer. I use a cheap PCI Adaptec SCSI card with a 50-pin connector. However if you're trying to read files from an OS/2 HPFS partition, your "modern" machine will have to be running WinNT 3.51. As mentioned, this won't work at all for the ESDI drives. They're completely proprietary. That's where I use interlnk and intersvr.
 
Linux also support HPFS quite well, at least on Debian ("sudo modprobe hpfs" is enough to make it work).
 
So my idea of a Blue Pill MCU that plugs into the parallel port of the subject machine and virtualizes a drive as an MSC device on USB isn't grabbing any attention? Shame, that.
 
I'm still working on a parallel to microsd adapter. Just about have it to the point where a file can be transferred over.
 
I think something like that would be convenient and easy to use. Would that expose the storage device as a sector device (requiring a compatible file system), or more like a network drive (hiding the file system from the computer)?
 
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