How to write HP-9121 floppies from a PC ?

[Pascal]

I have a set of floppies of windows 1.03 for the HP-150. They are single sided, double density disks with a capacity of 270KB. This format is compatible with the HP-9121 disk drive and is unfortunately not compatible with standard DOS or Windows. Some of the floppies have bad sectors and 2-3 files are not readable. For example the Windows Write disk that contains the write.exe file has a bad sector. I think I have found a way to work this out by taking the write.exe from another set of windows 1.03 disks that I have that is for the HP Vectra (5.25", 360KB). The file size and date is exactly the same so I assume it will also work on the HP-150.

In order to transfer the write.exe to the HP-9121 floppy, I would need a software that can read & write to this special format from within DOS or Windows. So far I found a software that can format and copy such disks from Windows, it's called Omniflop. It can create image files of hp-9121 floppies but it's not possible to edit those file in order to inject files.

So I'm stuck here and I wonder if anyone would have a good idea to help me continue this project. Any suggestion ?

[Raymond Del Tondo]

Hi,

you could also try a completely different approach.

Why not transfer files over a serial link, using a terminal program?

AFAIK the HP-150 has a serial port, and I once had a HP-150II unit with HP-IL interface;-)

Raymond

[Pascal]

That's an excellent suggestion, I will give it a try and let you know the result.

[Egan Ford]

Quote:

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270KB

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270? or 720?

Quote:

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In order to transfer the write.exe to the HP-9121 floppy, I would need a software that can read & write to this special format from within DOS or Windows.

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Have you tried LIFUTIL for DOS?

http://www.home.agilent.com/agilent/redirector.jspx?action=ref&cc=US&lc=eng&ckey=1000002597-1:epsg:faq&cname=AGILENT_EDITORIAL
http://www.home.agilent.com/agilent/redirector.jspx?action=ref&cc=US&lc=eng&ckey=1000072149:epsg:dow&cname=AGILENT_EDITORIAL

This may help: Google: lifutil site:hpmuseum.org

[Pascal]

Thanks for the suggestion. I confirm that it's 270KB, not 720. I tried the lifutil but it seems that it was designed to handle an even older disk type which is incompatible with the 9121 disk type.