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In article <459@njsmu.UUCP> klg@njsmu.UUCP (Kenneth Goodwin) writes:
|We have the need to transfer textual information off of 8 inch
|diskettes written by an IBM Displaywriter  word processor.
|This WP has no modem or tape drive which we can use and the format
|of the diskettes is unknown to us. Does anyone have any suggestions
|on where we can go to get these diskettes converted to a more portable format?

There are a variety of conversion services but if you're going to be
doing it a lot you should look into getting your own 8" drive.  Most
of the conversion services are quite costly in the long run.

An outfit called Flagstaff Engineering (out of Flagstaff, Arizona)
makes a controller for 8" drives for the PC.  I've used it and some of
their conversion programs and it works as advertised.  Unfortunately
the card is very expensive; ours was $750 and the conversion software
was the same.  We paid it because we really needed it.  Instead of
buying their 8" drive we bought a real cheap one from some distributor
or another; this saved a lot of money (although it looks pretty
klunky).  The whole deal has been in operation for about three years
without a problem.  Actually, there was a problem initially.  Our very
cheap 8" drive couldn't seek as fast as the driver was sending seek
commands.  A call to Flagstaff's tech support got me the information
to alter their timing table to slow down the driver and it worked like
a charm after that.

Once you get the files onto your PC, you have some more choices.  IBM
has DisplayWrite III for the PC which will use the displaywrite files.
Unfortunately DisplayWrite III is about the worst wordprocessing
program I've ever seen when it comes to getting a real printout
(although it has a fantastic spell checker); it only recognizes IBM
printers and doesn't even do much with them.  Pretty silly given the
cost of laserprinters now and the variety of non-IBM printers out
there.

The problem you'll come into if you decide to throw out DisplayWrite
is that the file format is in EBCDIC and is not described anywhere.
That means that the only real way to get ASCII out of it is to use
DisplayWrite's "generate ASCII file" option, which of course requires
you to have DisplayWrite.  DisplayWrite is not cheap; if you're trying
to convert to a different wordprocessor, try to borrow DisplayWrite
from someone or if you can't do that get a demo from some software
house, do the conversions, and tell them that it wasn't what you were
looking for.  The software really isn't worth $400 or whatever it goes
for now.

|We also have a xerox 860 word processor that has 8 inch diskette drives
|but we don't think they are compatible with IBM's.....

They probably are at a low level (8" drives are really pretty generic)
but the odds of it using the same file format are not good.  Even if
you could read it, it's not very likely that you could do much with
it.

|Knowing the actual format of the diskette - TPI/density single sided/dual sided
|might help as well.

Sorry I can't help you with that; my info on DisplayWrite disks is a
long way away from here.  I hope my other information is useful.  If
you have any questions, don't hesitate to email me.

jim frost
madd@bu-it.bu.edu