On 6/23/19 5:10 PM, Mary Ann Horton Gmail wrote: > Hunting around through my ancient stuff today, I ran across a 5.25" > floppy drive labeled as having old Usenet maps. These may have > historical interest. Intriguing. > First off, I don't recognize the handwriting on the disk. It's not mine. > Does anyone recognize it? (pic attached) > > I dug out my AT&T 6300 (XT clone) from the garage and booted it up. The > floppy reads just fine. It has files with .MAP extension, which are > ASCII Usenet maps from 1980 to 1984, and some .BBM files which are ASCII > Usenet backbone maps up to 1987. > > There is also a file whose extension is .GRF from 1983 which claims to > be a graphical Usenet map.  Does anyone have any idea what GRF is or > what this map might be? I recall Brian Reid having a plotter-based > Usenet geographic map in 84 or 85. Hum. > I'd like to copy these files off for posterity. They read on DOS just > fine. Is there a current best practice for copying off files? I would > have guessed I'd need a to use the serial port, but my old PC has DOS > 2.11 (not much serial copying software on it) and I don't have anything > live with a serial port anymore. And it might not help with the GRF file. I wonder if you could get away with something as simple as a null modem cable and the following commands: Source: copy a:\file COM1 Destination: copy COM1 c:\file Does the source machine have a hard drive? Do you have a blank (sacrificial) floppy disk? Can you copy the files anywhere so that they are in more than one place? Do you have a printer that you could create a (hexadecimal) printout? Do you have a machine that can accept a USB-to-Serial adapter? What about something like a Raspberry Pi? It has a serial port (though it needs a level shifter). > I took some photos of the screen with the earliest maps (the ones that > fit on one screen.) So it's an option to type things in, at least for > the early ASCII ones. I'd be interested in seeing them. Do you have a place that you can upload them to? -- Grant. . . . unix || die