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Article: 13510 of comp.protocols.kermit.misc
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From: Frank Slootweg <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp.hpux,comp.protocols.kermit.misc
Subject: LIF utilities for (DOS) PC (was: Need Kermit Diskette for HP-9816 200/300 BASIC Workstation)
Date: 5 Jul 2002 07:34:04 GMT
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Note: Subject changed in order to 'attract' people who may have some
practical experience in *this* (LIF) area (instead of in Kermit).

Frank da Cruz <[e-mail]> wrote:
> In article <ag1dkq$cfn$[e-mail]>,
> Frank Slootweg  <[e-mail]> wrote:
> :
> : I see that the original problem statement was:
> :
> : > On behalf of a user who badly needs to get some scientific data into and
> : > out of an HP 9816 Series 200/300 BASIC workstation.
> :
> :   If this data fits on one diskette (at a time), then perhaps Kermit is
> : not needed at all, and all data transfer can be done by using HP 9816
> : format diskettes on the HP 9816 and a lifcp-like program on the source/
> : target platform. BTW, what *is* the source/target platform (i.e.
> : hardware?, OS?, diskette drive?, etc.).
> :
> The scientist in question has, besides the HP 9816, a DOS PC and a
> Windows PC.  He's not a computer guy, so most of the suggestions here won't
> help much.  Unless we can hand him an HP 9816 BASIC Kermit diskette that
> is immediately usable, or a DOS/HP diskette interchange solution like this
> one, we're tilting at windmills.
>
> Since other messages in this thread seem to indicate that "lifcp" can
> write diskettes only on HP-UX, this seems to rule the latter approach.

  Well, I think I have some good news!!!!!

  I re-checked some of the old pointers from old comp.sys.hp.* postings
about LIF and came up with the following:

Best
====

  I did a Google "I'm Feeling Lucky search on "LIFUTIL", which comes up
with:

http://www.cyto.purdue.edu/flowcyt/software/DATA/LIFUTIL/LIFUTIL.EXE

  This is the HP "LIF Utilities for the PC. Version A.00.01" product
E2080A, which is (unsupported) freeware (since October 1994).

  I can not try this (yet), because this is for DOS (I am now on NT) and
my home DOS PC's diskette drive is broken. However on NT it does start,
has a nice CUI menu and works somewhat (i.e. can tell that a diskette is
DOS, even if I try to list it as LIF).

  Perhaps others (You, Frank (da Cruz)?) can (also) try this utility.

Medium
======

ftp://ftp.mcc.ac.uk/pub/dos/lif2dos.readme
ftp://ftp.mcc.ac.uk/pub/dos/lif2dos.zip
ftp://ftp.mcc.ac.uk/pub/dos/lif2dos2.readme
ftp://ftp.mcc.ac.uk/pub/dos/lif2dos2.zip

but these are only LIF to DOS, *not* the other way around.

Unknown
=======

  I had some pointers to "HPWUTIL", so I did Google "I'm Feeling Lucky
search on "HPWUTIL", which comes up with:

http://ftp.agilent.com/pub/mpusup/pc/binfiles/old/mcp/hpwutil.exe

  This is HP "HPW utility program version 3.00. 12-13-1989", which,
AFAIK, is also (unsupported) freeware.

  Agilent is the "instrument" part which was split off from HP. This LIF
stuff was mainly used with instruments, so (apparently) the software
also went to Agilent.

  I do not know what the "W" in "HPW" stands for, and do not know
whether this utility helps with the 9816 <--> transfer, hence my
"Unknown" qualification.

> For the record, the datasets are similar to card images with columns of
> floating-point numbers, about 16000 "cards" per set, 65 columns each:
>
>   1  1  1  1  2  7  2   68    166.598        0  12.1114    0    0
>   1  1  1  1  2  7  3   62    128.721        0  13.5718    0    0
>   1  1  1  1  2  8  1   16    19.8439        0  10.8263    0    0
>
> or 1040000 bytes, which fits on a HD diskette.  But if other datasets are
> larger than this, they will need to be broken up or else transferred with
> Kermit.  Also I don't know the density of his diskette drive; maybe it's
> only 720K.  All he knows is that it's a "dual disk drive connected by
> HP-IB interface".

  I think that he may have to find out more details about the diskette,
because for initializing a disk, the above LIFUTIL utility wants to know
about disk type (SS ('blue'), DS ('gray') and  HD ('black')), sector
size (256 or 1024 bytes) and interleave (1 to 15). Disk type should be
easy and interleave is probably only relevant for 'speed', but sector
size might be more difficult.

  However, maybe/hopefully all these 'details' are only needed for
*initializing* *new* disks, and he can workaround that problem by
initializing new disks on the HP 9816, instead of on the PC.

  Bottom line: If you, Frank (da Cruz) have a DOS PC, then I advise to
follow the procedure I mentioned in my 4 Jul 2002 12:04:42 GMT response
(<news:ag1dkq$cfn$[e-mail]>), but now with you as "he
person doing the work" and using LIFUTIL on your DOS PC instead of lifcp
on HP-UX. That way you can give the user *both* the HP 9816 Kermit
program (on a diskette) *and* LIFUTIL for DOS to copy HP 9816 diskettes
to a DOS PC and vice versa.

[deleted]