BBC Micro Transfer Data Issue

[shelly]

Hello,

This is my 1st post, so hello 2 every1

I have some floppys i want to trans across to the BBC emulator.

I have a Beeb Master, and an external drive.

My old PC is a Toshiba 4070CDS. Found these specs: http://www.pchub.com/uph/laptop/199-393 ... 3-Mhz.html

How can I transfer my discs into images to use on the emulator?

Laymans terms if you can

Thank you so much for your kind help.

Shelly xxx

[sorvad]

Hello and welcome.

There are quite a few ways to transfer real disks to the emulator, differing in price and how much fiddling you need to do.

As your just getting back into beebs you probably want to keep costs down a little. So I'll start with possibly the cheapest way

Serial Transfer
You need a special cable which costs about £5 in parts, someone here may sell you one or if you feel confident make yourself. With this you connect one end to your Master and the other to your laptop (I note it has a 9 pin serial port). Then using free software (DFS Transfer) you can pop a floppy in your Masters drive and the entire contents will be transferred across to a disk image on your PC.

Disk Transfer
If you're laptop as a floppy (not according to specs), as you've got a Master connecting a second 3.5" drive to it is not to hard but you'll need to replace the cable that goes into your current drive. If you don't feel confident this may not be for you. Although people do occasionally sell 5.25"/3.5" combo's from time to time. Not sure what the going rate would be.

Data Centre
Available from RetroClinic (member of this site). A very professional and capable solution. With it you can plug a USB memory stick into it. Transfer all your stuff from floppy to the stick and then just plug the stick in your PC, job done.

There are some other ways but looking at your laptop spec these seem appropriate.

[shelly]

Hi,

I think the data cables would be cheaper.

60 quid for the Retro bits is to much for me.

My laptop has a built in 3.5 floppy.

How do I go about making up the cables, or buying them pre made, and is the transfer software easy to install.

I think I need to put an elastic band on the Beeb floppy, as it's slipping

Thanks for your fast responses which are appreciaed.

xx

[sorvad]

Just looked on eBay, no one seems to be selling them at the moment (cost there would be between £10 and £15). Can you solder and have a soldering iron ? If not you'll need someone to make one up for you or sell you their's. If you've got a soldering iron I can post some instructions, it's as easy as just soldering wires to pins in the connectors, nothing else to do.

Otherwise try putting a wanted thread up in the wanted section. Quite a few people have these cables and perhaps don't need them anymore with all the new devices about and a lot of modern PC's stopping coming with serial ports.

[shelly]

Just looked on eBay, no one seems to be selling them at the moment (cost there would be between £10 and £15). Can you solder and have a soldering iron ? If not you'll need someone to make one up for you or sell you their's. If you've got a soldering iron I can post some instructions, it's as easy as just soldering wires to pins in the connectors, nothing else to do.

Yeah, if you could, that would be great. I think the beeb has a strange din plug. I think maplins had one; getting the right on is the problem.

Thanks again.

[sorvad]

Maplins don't sell the DIN plug, it's an odd "domino" one. One pin in centre surrounded by four equally spaced pins, looking like the number 5 of a domino hence the name. But they can be got for about a £1 plus a bit of P&P from here;

http://www.wsplc.com/acatalog/Info_5894.html

I've bough quite a few from these people over the years and even if you get just the one small thing their P&P isn't crippling. As for cable almost any with enough lines will do, although I prefer a soft video cable that Maplins do, just had a nice flexible feel to it. Maplins also supply the 9 pin female serial connectors too if you want to get that from there.

Give me a few days and I'll get my notes from the attic on exactly which wire goes where as some of the examples on the web aren't that clear and some don't work with the DFS Explorer software, whereas the connections I use definitely do. Might try and post some piccies of the cable I have as well as that may help.

[ukretrogamer]

Hi

I've seen my friend Ian from eBay's "Retro Computer Shack" at weekend and whilst he has none of these cables in his online catalogue, he's more than likely got some in stock.

His store can be found here:
http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/Retro-Com ... QQ_armrsZ1

I won't post his email address to the forum but if you are interested, by all means pm me and I'll pass it on.

Regards
Mark

[shelly]

Maplins don't sell the DIN plug, it's an odd "domino" one. One pin in centre surrounded by four equally spaced pins, looking like the number 5 of a domino hence the name. But they can be got for about a £1 plus a bit of P&P from here;

http://www.wsplc.com/acatalog/Info_5894.html

I've bough quite a few from these people over the years and even if you get just the one small thing their P&P isn't crippling. As for cable almost any with enough lines will do, although I prefer a soft video cable that Maplins do, just had a nice flexible feel to it. Maplins also supply the 9 pin female serial connectors too if you want to get that from there.

Give me a few days and I'll get my notes from the attic on exactly which wire goes where as some of the examples on the web aren't that clear and some don't work with the DFS Explorer software, whereas the connections I use definitely do. Might try and post some piccies of the cable I have as well as that may help.

How did you get on - did you find the diagram?

Thanks

[BeebMaster]

I have a Beeb Master

I'd wondered where I've been lately!

I usually use floppy discs for file transfers between BBC and PC. The serial link method works but I always used to find it pretty slow. At the time I was using the serial transfer software, there was a problem with running it on Windows XP so you had to use an old DOS Boot disc on your PC to go into Windows 3.1 DOS or something like that, although this may have been fixed by now, it was a few years ago.

To use floppy discs you would need a 3.5" drive for your BBC, wired up with your existing 5.25" drive so you could transfer the files onto 3.5" discs which you can then use in your laptop.

You can read and write DFS and ADFS discs in a Windows PC using Omniflop, so you could make images of your discs to use in an emulator.

If you only need to transfer single files or groups of files rather than a whole disc then you can use Sprow's DOSFS to read and write 720K DOS discs on your BBC which will of course work straight off in your laptop.

[shelly]

I have a Beeb Master

I'd wondered where I've been lately!

I usually use floppy discs for file transfers between BBC and PC. The serial link method works but I always used to find it pretty slow. At the time I was using the serial transfer software, there was a problem with running it on Windows XP so you had to use an old DOS Boot disc on your PC to go into Windows 3.1 DOS or something like that, although this may have been fixed by now, it was a few years ago.

To use floppy discs you would need a 3.5" drive for your BBC, wired up with your existing 5.25" drive so you could transfer the files onto 3.5" discs which you can then use in your laptop.

You can read and write DFS and ADFS discs in a Windows PC using Omniflop, so you could make images of your discs to use in an emulator.

If you only need to transfer single files or groups of files rather than a whole disc then you can use Sprow's DOSFS to read and write 720K DOS discs on your BBC which will of course work straight off in your laptop.

Hi,

The PC would be running W98.

I had hoped the set up would be having the Master linked to the 5.25" drive, and using the cables sorvad mentioned, I would link the Master to the laptop, and using the free software I could transfer the floppy images across to the laptop, and run them through the emulator.



Shelly xxx

[sorvad]

How did you get on - did you find the diagram?

Thanks

Err... I forgot all about it, very sorry Will have a look

[shelly]

How did you get on - did you find the diagram?

Thanks

Err... I forgot all about it, very sorry Will have a look

Thanks

[station240]

Maplins don't sell the DIN plug, it's an odd "domino" one. One pin in centre surrounded by four equally spaced pins, looking like the number 5 of a domino hence the name. But they can be got for about a £1 plus a bit of P&P from here;

http://www.wsplc.com/acatalog/Info_5894.html

You can get that odd "domino" plug from just about anywhere that has a decent stock of DIN plugs, you're going to kick yourself to read this.

DIY "domino" plug
Buy a 8 pin DIN plug (262 degrees), and take it apart as usual when you get it home.
Hold the inner plastic part with the pins so the "key" points up (12 o'clock)
You need to remove the 3 pins from the 3,6 and 9 o'clock positions.

Open a pair of needle noise pliers, and place so that one part goes on the front of the plastic part, and the other goes on the solder side of the pin. Squeeze so as to push the pin all the way into the plastic, the grab is from the other side and twist/wriggle until it comes out.

There you have it, took me about 2 minutes all up (had to find the pliers).

[CMcDougall]

when i first got XFER5.1 going : -

get 5pin din from old Amstrad Hi-Fi. Take it to bits, put it together with blue-tak, hey presto, 30seconds

[sorvad]

OK, connections that will work for using DFS Explorer.

Code: Select all

Beeb Pin       To       PC Pin
    5                     6
    4                     3
    1                     5
    2                     4
    3                     2

In Addition, on the PC connector connect together pin 6 to pin 1. Connect pin 7 to pin 8.

Pin numbers are as embossed on the backs of the plugs. BBC is obviously the domino type and the PC is 9 pin serial type. Note if you get your domino plug by taking apart another plug with more pins as mentioned on these pages then I’m not sure if the pin numbers that will be embossed on the plug will be on the right pins (can anyone confirm yes or no ?). If they are not the same you will have to refer to a diagram of the domino plug for pin outs. There’s one in one of the user guides (forget which).

[station240]

Note if you get your domino plug by taking apart another plug with more pins as mentioned on these pages then I’m not sure if the pin numbers that will be embossed on the plug will be on the right pins (can anyone confirm yes or no ?).

The pin numbers would be wrong, though in my plug there were no numbers to start with.

[sorvad]

The PC serials usually have the in numbers on them, least I've never had one that didn't. The domino plug might be different, some might have some might not, I think I've been lucky with the have's.

If yours does not have numbers then they are as follows (looking into the pins from the back where you would solder the wires to them with the notch at the bottom)

centre pin = pin 1
top left = 4
top right =3
bottom left = 5
bottom right =2

[shelly]

OK, connections that will work for using DFS Explorer.

Code: Select all

Beeb Pin       To       PC Pin
    5                     6
    4                     3
    1                     5
    2                     4
    3                     2

In Addition, on the PC connector connect together pin 6 to pin 1. Connect pin 7 to pin 8.

Pin numbers are as embossed on the backs of the plugs. BBC is obviously the domino type and the PC is 9 pin serial type. Note if you get your domino plug by taking apart another plug with more pins as mentioned on these pages then I’m not sure if the pin numbers that will be embossed on the plug will be on the right pins (can anyone confirm yes or no ?). If they are not the same you will have to refer to a diagram of the domino plug for pin outs. There’s one in one of the user guides (forget which).

Thanks for that information. Totally appreciated

I take it I solder a wire across on the serial side from 6 to 1, 7 to 8. I'll start getting the bits together soon; I'll also have a search for that software you mentioned.

Thanks again to everyone who helped me. It will be great having all my old discs imaged onto the PC for the emulator.

xxx

BTW - Just had a look at the DFS Explorer; it doesnt seem to be free
From what I gathered, the site seems to say that you have to pay for the features of creating images, and the program only works on one PC?

Could you tell me where to download the DFS Franser software above; having trouble finding it at the moment.

Great site, btw - shame it's closing. It's been a brilliant support for BBC things. Long Live the stairway, and here's to the new sight (raises a glass - no drink raising smillies available LOL!).

[CMcDougall]

you have to pay for the features of creating images, and the program only works on one PC?

yeah, the new version2.00 you have to get the unlock code from Jon. This requires the system you want to use it on ID#s/serial #, this generates the code to use on that system.
Its well worth it

stuff here
http://www.g7jjf.com/windows_software.htm

[BeebInC]

The easiest way to get a cable in my experience is just get a modem lead from the beeb, 5 pin domino to 25 pin rs232, then just plug that into a pc null modem lead. 25/9 pin to 25/9 pin. No soldering needed

[shelly]

Thanks for the info.

I'll look into the various connection ideas.

In the meantime, does anyone have a link to the free DFS Transfer software; I was having trouble finding that one.

[CMcDougall]

^ did u not try the link i posted above

direct link http://www.g7jjf.com/progs/DFS_Explorer_2_0_0.zip

[shelly]

^ did u not try the link i posted above

direct link http://www.g7jjf.com/progs/DFS_Explorer_2_0_0.zip

I thought 'DFS Transfer' was the program name.

Thanks!

[shelly]

The easiest way to get a cable in my experience is just get a modem lead from the beeb, 5 pin domino to 25 pin rs232, then just plug that into a pc null modem lead. 25/9 pin to 25/9 pin. No soldering needed

So, you just connect one lead into the other, and that's it? No soldering?

That sounds good.

I have a spare serial cable! Yippeee!

In the the above help I would only need to sort out the donimo plug and check the wiring.

But your idea sounds simpler still. The only problem is I don't have a BBC modem rs232 cable. Couldnt find one in searching. I'll have another look around. It would be a very simple idea that you came up with.

Thanks again to all

[sorvad]

I take it I solder a wire across on the serial side from 6 to 1, 7 to 8.

Yep, that's it, sorry late reply, RL getting in way again. Good luck with which ever way you go