How do I recover files from CPM format?

March 15, 2004 10:01 PM

Is there a way to recover files from CPM? [more inside]

On a friend's behalf:

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Hi all,

Here's a tech question. I have the urge to rescue some of my older [files] from where they are languishing on diskette....

The diskettes are all 5 1/4". No problem. When I got my latest and fastest computer a few months ago, I spent $20 bucks and had a 5 1/4" drive put in. (I kept thinking about all my friends with all their old diskettes with all their irretrievable files and figured I could do a favor for a few people.)

The files are all in WordStar. No problem. I still have an old computer that has Word Perfect for DOS, which can still translate WordStar.

The Problem: The operating system for the computer I used at the time was CPM, the predecessor to DOS. A DOS based machine can't read these disks. At all.

I have no idea how to overcome that problem. Any tech wizards out there?
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posted by casarkos to computers & internet (3 comments total)

There seem to be a couple of potentially utilities here, and this utility is a bit spendy but almost certainly can do the job. cpmtools is completely free, but seems to be distributed only as source. If the system in question isn't Unix-like, perhaps some kindly person with a Windows compiler or cross-compiler can make a binary for your friend.
posted by majick at 10:18 PM on March 15, 2004

As a matter of idle nosiness - what kind of files are written back then are worth saving? I can't find a computer to run my Challenger C2 PC Basic games on, even if I could get them from cassette into my PC..
posted by Pericles at 5:18 AM on March 16, 2004

I think these were short stories.
posted by casarkos at 6:35 AM on March 16, 2004