[Info-vax] Anyone have a working DEC Rainbow PC200B?

[Bob Eager]

On Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:25:34 UTC, "Richard B. Gilbert" 
<rgilbert88 at comcast.net> wrote:

> JCamCMKRNL wrote:
> > Hello old friends,
> > 
> > It's been a while since I have posted here, and I am back with another
> > Legacy Computer issue. This time it is not for a PDP-11. Now for
> > something a little more modern. A DEC Rainbow.
> > 
> > I have two boxes of old DEC Rainbow backup 5.25" floppies that I need
> > to get as much data off of as I can. Does anyone have any suggestions?
> > I'm not sure what density they were written in, but it looks like they
> > were written with something called an "IDRIVE", and no it is not like
> > an iPod.
> > 
> > Than you.
> > Jeff
> 
> Once upon a time, there was a PC DOS and/or Windows program that would 
> read Rainbow disks.  I think it may have been able to write them as 
> well.  I don't know where to find a copy now.

But only if you had a PC/AT. You need one of the 1.2MB 5.25" drives...as
that is an 80 track drive. Such drives weren't that popular - most were 
40 track ones. And you had to be prepared to program the controller to 
DD rather than HD mode.

Once that's done, it's easy to read the blocks off the disk, and take 
time to unpick the (pretty simple) disk format...basically standard 
MS-DOS, with some reserved sectors on the front to hold the Z80 
firmware.

-- 
Bob Eager