From: SMTP%"quigg@virginia.edu" 12-NOV-1999 09:27:06.62 To: SHOPPA CC: Subj: RE: PDP-11 Return-Path: Received: from mail.virginia.edu ([128.143.2.9]) by timaxp.trailing-edge.com with SMTP for SHOPPA@trailing-edge.com; Fri, 12 Nov 1999 9:27:05 -0500 Received: from unix.mail.virginia.edu by mail.virginia.edu id aa05162; 12 Nov 99 9:27 EST Received: from mark (bootp-115-125.bootp.Virginia.EDU [128.143.115.125]) by unix.mail.Virginia.EDU (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id JAA24488 for ; Fri, 12 Nov 1999 09:27:01 -0500 Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19991112093204.00975e80@unix.mail.virginia.edu> X-Sender: msq6g@unix.mail.virginia.edu X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 09:32:04 -0500 To: Tim Shoppa From: "quigg@virginia,edu" Subject: RE: PDP-11 In-Reply-To: <991111170444.202000e4@trailing-edge.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Please call Paul Domer at 804 924 2511 to schedule a site visit with the immediate goal of straight transfer of data from PDP to PC, and a secondary goal of file conversion to a MS-Access or Excel-readable ASCII file dump. THe PDP-11 runs. At 05:04 PM 11/11/99 -0500, you wrote: >>The quote for straight conversion is agreeable to me, so you're hired. > >Good! The "straight" conversion is something easily done, so if you >can get me a PO# and the disks I can get these turned around within a >day of receipt. Alternatively I can lug my equipment down there >and do the conversion at your site if the >8" disks are too valuable to trust to Fedex. (I have a Canadian >customer who flies down with a briefcase full of paper tapes to be >converted every few weeks...!) > >>But, since I wouldn't know what do do with a tar archive, we need a plan to >>attack the file format. If a visit to Cville will do it, then so be it. > >I'm leaning towards that. Shipping the hard drives up here might be a >bit risky. > >> I >>would need to estimate for our business manager some sort of target costs. > >A first trip down, would be a day trip (2-6 hours on site) and could be >scheduled as early as mid-next week. If you wanted the "straight" conversion >done on-site this would take about 3 hours of time there. > >>In general terms, not holding you to it, in similar jobs in which you may >>have had to extract binary PDP data and convert it to ASCII, Windows/PC >>formatted files, what is the duration of time at $50/hour that such a >>process takes? > >In many cases the files on disk are in a fairly human-readable ASCII form >already, and all it takes is a quick run through with some global-search- >and-replaces from an editor. In that case all 15 floppies might go through >in the same hour. > >> And other than having a large box of PDP junk and asking >>your to peck through it, what data would you need specifically to perform >>this extraction so that we can begin the process of presorting the mess. > >As long as we're on the subject of PDP junk, is your 11/10 with the >programs that wrote the data files still up and running? Having the >ability to read a data file there and display it on the screen (or send >it in human-readable form to a printer) will be a good cross-check on whether >I understand the internals of the format on disk. > >-- > Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa@trailing-edge.com > Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ > 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 > Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927 > > Mark Quigg, MD Director of EEG/EP/Int Monitoring Laboratory FE Dreifuss Comprehensive Epilepsy Program UVA Neurology, Box 394, HSC Charlottesville, VA 22908 USA Ph:(804) 924-5312 Fx:(804) 982-1726 quigg@virginia.edu