Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Path: brunix!sgiblab!darwin.sura.net!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!torn!nott!nrcnet0!amtsg0.ime.nrc.ca!johnston
From: johnston@amtsg0.ime.nrc.ca (Daniel F. Johnston)
Subject: Summary: Copy (legal) of VAL-II system disk?
Message-ID: <1993Nov29.185101.13558@nrcnet0.nrc.ca>
Sender: root@nrcnet0.nrc.ca (Operator)
Nntp-Posting-Host: amtsg0.ime.nrc.ca
Organization: National Research Council of Canada
References:  <1993Nov25.130312.15395@nrcnet0.nrc.ca>
Date: Mon, 29 Nov 93 18:51:01 GMT
Lines: 46

Thanks to the help from the net I can now copy the VAL-II
system disk for my Unimation-6000 robot.  ... And I can
sleep better at night :-)
Thank esp. to Filip Gieszczykiewicz (fmg@beta.smi.med.pitt.edu)
for his pointers to the anadisk software.

Here are the steps;

1.  Dig deep into your desk to find some old DS-DD, 48 TPI
5.25 in. disks.  (I tried some modern 96 TPI floppies, but
the procedure failed with these).

2. Format these floppies on the VAL-II control system using
the "FORMAT" command.

3. Get, via anonymous FTP, the software ANADISK from the site
Oak.Oakland.edu, directory /pub/msdos/dskutl. (File name of
the compressed program is "anad207.zip".  Note that this
is shareware software.  The (compressed) program is a utility
that (among other things) allows a sector-by-sector copy of
non-standard disks.  It seems to be able to handle VAL-II
floppies.  Remember to use BINARY ftp for this compressed file.

4. Uncompress the software on to some DOS box with a 5.25 inch
floppy drive.  Run 'anadisk', select 'copy', set the disk source
and destination drive ID's (I used drive B: for both source
and dest.), and make your copy.

I did the above with my VAL-II system disk as source, and was
able to re-load VAL-II off my new copy.  Finally!!!

Thanks again for the assistance!  I now have to tell all those
guys on site with Puma 560 robots.

-- 
      ___|__    |
      /  |  \   ||\      Daniel (Dan) Johnston
     /___|___\  || \     Dan.Johnston@nrc.ca
    _____|____  ||  \    National Research Council of Canada
    |    |    | ||   \   Institute for Advanced Manufacturing Technology
\___|    |    | ||____\  Tel: (613) 993-6627   Fax: (613) 998-2771
 \_o_\___|____|_|______\_ 
  \                o /    These opinions are my own! Not those of NRC.
   \________________/

 More Tall Ships - Fewer Computers!               
