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

[Joe Hunt]

JCamCMKRNL <jcam90502 at earthlink.net> 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

If you don't take up Bob G.'s offer but have a system with a 1.2MB
5.25" floppy drive and MS-DOS available, this link might be helpful.

ftp://ftp.update.uu.se/pub/professional/venix/rx50.zip

This is a zip file containing two device drivers and documentation to
allow for initializing and reading/writing RX50 floppies under MS-DOS.
These drivers were originally written by Robert F. Morse.  I used them
many years ago to transfer files between IBM (and clone) pcs and my
Rainbow.

Concerning the IDrive, I may be misremembering, but I think it only
referred to a 3.5" drive.  The following link describes how the TEAC
3.5" 720K floppy could be installed in a Rainbow.

http://www.os2site.com/dec/rainbow/doc/720kdrive.txt

Joe