Date   : Wed, 10 Oct 2007 12:14:13 +0100
From   : samwise@... (samwise)
Subject: Late Father's BBC Master computers and boxes of

On 10/10/2007, TONY BERESFORD <tony.beresford@...> wrote:
> I have three computers above and two big boxes of discs.
> There are two viglen double disc drives, but no monitor or printer.
> How can I make connections to be able to read and print his files and
> archive them to my pc either by scanning printed documents or software to
> read on pc.
> Thank you for any help,
> Tony.

Tony,

What size disks are they?  Big, likely black, floppy 5.25" disks
(which would probably be DFS formatted) or smaller, likely blue, rigid
3.5" disks with a sliding metal cover (which would probably be
formatted for ADFS)?

There are generally two ways for getting disk images from BBC
formatted disks into an image file for use on a PC, with an emulator:

1)  OmniFlop [http://www.shlock.co.uk/Utils/OmniFlop/OmniFlop.htm]

This is a software program for Windows which can read BBC formatted
disks from a PC fitted with an appropriate size drive (e.g. would need
a PC 5.25" disk drive to read BBC micro 5.25" DFS floppy disks).  Very
quick and, IME, very reliable.

2) Construct your own serial cable to go from the BBC Micro to the PC
and run software at both ends to transfer images of either individual
files or the whole disk.  You can find links to the software on the
Essentials page of stairwaytohell.com.

HTH,

Sam.