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

[glenn everhart]

Joe Hunt wrote:
> 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
> 
oho. This is the rx50 driver set I recalled. Wonder if "Idrive" stood 
for "IBM drive", might just be ibm at 1.2mb format? (Or even the old 360k
format?)