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sco/unix to windows transfer

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m1crokid

IS-IT--Management
Feb 10, 2006
4
GB
Hi,

I have an ageing sco/unix 3.2 system from which I would like to transfer some data to a windows xp PC. The problem is that the sco/unix system only has a floppy drive or a DAT drive as removable media. It has no modern network card so a direct ftp transfer is out of the question. The windows XP machine does have compatible DAT drive also.

Small amounts of data can be moved using the doscp command and floppy drive. However I want to move several quite big files (100MB each) how can I do this?

Is it possible to use the tape drive using something like doscp to copy the files to tape?

I cannot read the back up tapes that are created by the sco/unix system in a windows pc, it just says the tape is in an invalid format.

If I create the files then let them get copied to tape using overnight back up how can I read them off the tape in windows? (When a backup occurs the data is written using CPIO through DD to DAT).

Any help suggestions or ideas would be gratefully appreciated!!!!

:)
 
Network cards are cheap, so the only problem you may have is if your SCO version does NOT include the TCP bit. If it does then install a network card suitable to your system and configure TCP/IP.

If not there are several backup software around there that will be able to work in both Unix and Windows, and will therefore do what you need.



Regards

Frederico Fonseca
SysSoft Integrated Ltd
 
I've used serial ports to transfer by cat filename > /dev/ttyx. Used basic to capture it.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.
 
The version of sco does not have TCP.

edfair - could you tell me more about transferring data using serial ports, I have the windows hooked up to the sco box via serial ports. I run an emulator on the xp machine to access the sco system.

Is it possible to transfer a file this way how to I send it from sco and how to I capture it in the windows system.

 
You should be able to find compatible transfer programs for both sides. Such as Kermit or Xmodem. There is a commercial product we use called MLINK (by Computer Associates).

You can find Zmodem binaries for SCO and use a compatible product on the Windows end. This link has information:


You might have to buy a copy of Anzio, but $40 seems to be a no-brainer if it will solve your issue.

I might have the TCP installation media for your version of SCO somewhere, but the configuration steps back then were different, and those particular brain cells are pretty stale at this point.
 
IF this is a once off transfer, then adding an IDE drive to the system, DOS formated with FAT16, will also be an easy opiton. Get a small HD (e.g. less then 2GB if possible) just to avoid problems, and mount this on the sco machine and copy the files to it.

Then just connect it to your Windows machine.

Regards

Frederico Fonseca
SysSoft Integrated Ltd
 
Regretably this is an ongoing thing so kind of makes swapping drives impartical. Also the sco unit has no ide bus.

Surely there must be away of using the tape drive?
 
Years ago, there was a "DOSTAR" utility. I think we got ours from the Lone-Tar folks, but I'm not positive. In any case, I wasn't able to locate much by searching the NET. I probably have a copy on 5 1/4" floppy somewhere at work. There's no guarantee it could run on current windows systems. In fact, the odds are slim that an old 16-bit utility would be granted the kind of hardware access required to manipulate the tape drive in XP. And, I've only used it to read floppy, not tape. I've not heard of any utility to read a CPIO tape, but maybe one exists. Have you played with the CYGWIN utilities? These are a set of utilities to let you run UNIX-type processes on Windows.

I'm just throwing out ideas. If you truly need this to be ongoing for a period of time, I think you'll have to seriously look into getting TCP running on that SCO box, or develop a serial-port transfer discussed above. 100MB files are a bit too large (in my opinion) to send via serial connection (nearly 30 hours at 9600 bps).
 
you could check out cygwin (free ) or the MKS ($) utilities, they both would have dd and cpio, but whether or not they can access a tape drive i don't know.
 
Since you are already on an emulator you might try Century Software's TinyTerm demo to see if the file capture works. I've never used the file capture on it as I've been on Arnet's Term till recently and no need for capture.

I don't have the combination of systems up to look into the DOS and GWbasic capture as I suggested. It may be several days before I next have a combination assembled and then a short while to look into the XP equivalent.



Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.
 
Why limit yourself to 9600bps, you could probably go up to 115200bps with a direct serial connection. Even Windows built-in HyperTerminal supports a swag of download protocols, so if you can just get yourself an sz (send Zmodem) binary for the SCO box you should be okay. 115200bps would give you approximately 11.5k/s which means approximately 2.5 hours of download time.

Annihilannic.
 
Ok so I have created a DIF file that I want to take from the sco/unix system and open in excel on windows. It is aprox 100Mb.

I have tiny term running on my windows XP terminal and can access the sco system from there.

How do I transfer the DIF file across? Can I do it one go or do I have to do it bit by bit. If I use the capture facility in tiny wouldn't I have to find a way of getting the contents of the file to scroll across the screen somehow?
 
Using tinyterm, one of the tabs has link to a file transfer capability using FTP. You use the utility while not logged in, tell it where to find the file and where to put it.


Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.
 
I know 9600 was on the low end. I just wanted to illustrate the potential time frame involved trying to move files that large over an asynchronous connection. I think the top-end in SCO 3.2 is 38400. Higher rates were available on most 3rd party serial adapters (DigiBoard, Specialix, etc.). The built-in COM port uses the main CPU to traffic the I/O, and it might not get the attention it needs to reliably run any faster.

Those "rz" and "sz" binaries are available on Anzio's downloads page (see link above). I'm not sure where you will find a "gzip" binary for SCO 3.2. That is easy to find for 5.0.x, but might not be compatible with your system.
 
Annihilannic:
You are correct. My bad. I made an assumption based upon my interpretation of his scenario: Old system, no TCP, Serial only, etc.

M1crokid: Can you run "uname -X" and post results?
 
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