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From: nyenhuis@dynamo.ecn.purdue.edu (John Nyenhuis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp
Subject: Re: HP 9836
Message-ID: <1991Feb22.171319.19521@noose.ecn.purdue.edu>
Date: 22 Feb 91 17:13:19 GMT
References: <1991Feb18.230935.14517@athena.mit.edu> <7370315@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM>
Sender: root@noose.ecn.purdue.edu (ECN System Management)
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Lines: 35

>>>In regards to the discussion on reading HP 9836 disks:

>
>The floppies use an HP format that dates from the late 70s.  Single-sided,
>66 tracks per surface (+4 spares), 16 sectors/track, 256 bytes/sector,
>270,336 bytes formatted.  The file system is usually HP-LIF (Logical
>Interchange Format).
>
>> And if there is a utility on IBM AT's that would allow
>> the reading and writing of the disks formatted on these computers.
>
I have written a program which can read individual floppy sectors on
an IBM or compatable PC in numerous formats, including varous 
HP such as the 86, 125, 150, Integral, and presumably also
the 9836. (This was not hard to do; just change the sector
size and number of sectors per track in the disk base table.)

My question: Is there technical information available on 
how files are organized on the HP 9836 and other machines?
This apparently is referred to as the HP-LIF format. 
With this information, it would be possible to extend
my program so individual files could be read and written.

  Thanks,

  John

P.S. My program, diskpc is the name, writen in Turbo Pascal,
     allows the user to save an image of the disk to a file
     and also to write the image file to floppy. I have found it
     very handy for making backups. I'll be happy to email 
     source code to the interested.

John Nyenhuis   Purdue University  School of Electrical Engineering
West Lafayette IN 47907   (317)494-3524     nyenhuis@ecn.purdue.edu


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