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Need Help Salvaging Data From an Old Xenix System

Posted by timothy on from the warrior-princess dept.

Milo_Mindbender writes "I've recently gotten ahold of an old Altos 586 Xenix system (a late '80s Microsoft flavor of Unix) that has one of the first multi-user BBS systems in the US on it, and I want to salvage the historical BBS posts off it. I'm wondering if anyone remembers what format Xenix used on the 10MB (yes MB) IDE hard drive and if it can still be read on a modern Linux system. This system is quite old, has no removable media or ethernet and just barely works. The only other way to get data off is a slow serial port. I've got a controller that should work with the disk, but don't want to tear this old machine apart without some hope that it will work. Anyone know?"

11 of 325 comments (clear)

  1. I'd do it the slow but secure way. by Securityemo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Even if it would take weeks. You're handling a historical relic, don't want to mess it up.

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    1. Re:I'd do it the slow but secure way. by jgardia · · Score: 5, Informative

      exactly, 10mb at 9600bps will take only 2-3 hours.

    2. Re:I'd do it the slow but secure way. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      No way it would take weeks. Even if the serial port was only 300 bit per second and he had to copy the whole 10MB disk through it this would take 10*1024*1024*8/300/3600=77.6 hours.
      Mid-80s I'd expect at least five-digit bps rates - at 14400bps this would take 1.6 hours

      so for G*ds sake, JUST USE THE SERIAL PORT

      I'd understand if he was talking about a terabyte via serial but 10 megabytes...

      But the real important question is: what to do with the salvaged data? If he'd want to post them online he might get in seriously shark-infected legal waters. Not everything I'd have posted in a BBS with a defined usergroup I gave permission to put on the internet without access control.

    3. Re:I'd do it the slow but secure way. by nurb432 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I agree, I'm sure its minimal to read Xenix file formats for the data, but the risks of old components giving up the ghost are far to high. If it works now, just do it via serial port and be patient. Only if its in the process of dying would i take it apart.

      As an aside, i find it an odd odd claim that the 'first multi user BBS' would be on a 8086... Considering i did it on an 8bit machine long before the ix86 was on the market, and on a VAX before that. ( and wasn't chicago's Z80 powered cbbs multi line at one point? ) Still, sounds like it is worthy of saving for the sake of history, but it's not as special as you might think....

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    4. Re:I'd do it the slow but secure way. by Ambient+Sheep · · Score: 5, Informative

      A 16550 in the early 1980s? I'm sorry, but I think not.

      I wrote a lot of serial comms drivers back in those days, and I don't think I even /heard/ of a 16550 until the very late 80s. First one I actually met was probably in my brand new 486DX33 box I got in 1992, although to be honest I don't remember for sure. I didn't code for one until about 1994, and that was on an embedded system, as you still couldn't guarantee that all PCs would have them rather than 16450s or even 8250s.

      Also bear in mind that the original 16550s were broken so you couldn't use the FIFO feature (which was the whole point of the thing) properly; that wasn't fixed until the 16550A came along.

  2. UUCP by John+Hasler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It'll take a few hours at 9600 baud. It's your best bet. Let it run over night and the job is done.

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  3. yeah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Xenix used their "sco xenix" filesystem. The Xenix filesystem is supported under the mount utility in modern 2.6 linux kernels
    by Anonymous Coward

  4. NO DISASSEMBLE ALTOS! by NNKK · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously, don't go there, not until you get the data off via the serial port (or flatly establish that you _can't_).

    You are dealing with a system that is lucky to be functional _at all_ after 25+ years, and presumably got heavy use while it was active. Corrosion, brittle plastics, dust worked into dangerous areas, etc..

    If it's working now, taking it apart stands a good chance of breaking something that is difficult or impossible to fully repair, and you don't want to go there until the information is preserved.

  5. Altos 586 by IGnatius+T+Foobar · · Score: 5, Informative

    What a great machine. The Altos 586 was the first machine I used to run my BBS (which has run nonstop since 1988 and is still online today) before SCO Xenix and later Linux arrived on the scene. It was an insanely cool computer.

    Anyway, even if there were an operating system available today that is still capable of parsing the Xenix filesystem, you wouldn't be able to get to it because the disk is attached to the system I/O board using an ST506 controller. Good luck finding a modern computer with one of those in it.

    You're going to have to move that data off the machine the way we did it back in the days when an Altos was a modern computer. Plug a null modem cable into that serial port and use UUCP to get the data moved. Or if the machine has rzsz installed, you might be able to get away with using Zmodem instead.

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  6. Re:audio by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    if the thing has a pc speaker you can (with a bit of work) and a noisy export via modulated audio.

    Alternatively, he could uuencode all the data, cat it to tty, take photos of the monitor and then OCR it.

    of course if you have access to a serial port controller that's easily the simplest method.

    Let's be realistic -- where's the fun in doing it like that?

  7. UUCP info you need by Kjellander · · Score: 5, Informative

    Setting up UUCP on Xenix
    Setting up UUCP on Linux

    If you really want to try to read the disk it is probably UFS which you can read from Linux.

    Hope this helps.