Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!ncar!noao!arizona!naucse!jdc
From: jdc@naucse.UUCP (John Campbell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: Re: dec to ibm
Message-ID: <1179@naucse.UUCP>
Date: 28 Feb 89 17:21:02 GMT
References: <7417@pyr.gatech.EDU>
Organization: Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ
Lines: 48

From article <7417@pyr.gatech.EDU>, by curci@stat.uucp (Ray Curci (scri)):
> In article <73511JET3@PSUVM> JET3@PSUVM.BITNET writes:
>>Let's try this again with a little more information.  I have a person here
>>who would like to transfer their DEC files to an IBM.  Here are the details
>>that I could find out from her:
>> 1. The DEC is a Digital Decmate II, PC 278-A, keyboard LK201BA.  The
>>    system has two 5.25" floppy drives.
>> 2. The IBM is an IBM PS/2 Model 50Z, with one 3.5" 1.44Mb floppy drive.
>>Jean Thompson
> 
> You may want to investigate putting KERMIT on both systems and attaching them
> with a serial cable.  KERMIT at 9600 bps works quite well and is very 
> inexpensive.  You should be able to fetch the KERMIT software using
> anonymous/ftp from c.columbia.edu.  A more expensive alternative is to
> attach a 5+1/4" disk to your PS/2 (I am unfamiliar with the decmate but
> assume it is an ibm pc/xt/at compatible machine?)  

Really, you shouldn't post if you're "unfamiliar" with one of the machines.
The DECMate, vanilla--without a Z80 board, has no operating system--it is
generally used as a proprietary word processing system.  Text, as I 
understand it, isn't even stored in ascii on the floppies...  KERMIT doesn't
exist for it.

The DECMate does have a built-in communication package--I've been able to
talk to other machines (RAW mode, no protocol) and even upload files from
the DECMate to the host.  The problem with this is that users are used to
having their DECMate bolding, underlining, ruler lines, etc. all go to another
word processing system intact.  DEC sells a product to allow a WPS to WPS
(the internal word processing system) transfer to occur which will preserve
all this.  I've forgotten the product's name, but I know it exists for
the VAX VMS and, of course, for the DECMate.

With no money, no VAX, but a lot of time on your hands you might do what
I did.  Since the DECMate is not programmable, and since I wanted the
output document, I wrote a program to capture output from the printer
port.  This is a bit nasty, maybe even silly, but it worked for me.  One
thing you have to do, however, is respond to the frequent printer queries
that are sent by the DECMate to tell if the printer is still active and
alive (DEC printers can talk back if given response queries).  The code
wasn't trivial--don't try this unless you're very comfortable building
escape sequence recognizers and communication programs.

(Of course, when you're all done you have a file with ANSI escape sequences
in it--on to another filter!)
-- 
	John Campbell               ...!arizona!naucse!jdc
                                    CAMPBELL@NAUVAX.bitnet
	unix?  Sure send me a dozen, all different colors.