14-05-2020, 12:31 AM
Thanks to the recent ebay seller for making this disk available to be imaged before it was sold. Thanks to vivid who actually imaged the disk with his Greaseweazle.
The Microbee disk was a 5.25" disk but was not the normal type. It was a standard density Microbee 40 track disk with 18 sectors of 256bytes/sec as produced by early 56k Microbee systems. The Greaseweasle produced SCP image was first converted to a HFE image and put onto a Gotek. The image booted and the program was able to be run. The SCP image was then converted to a raw image and when using a 56k boot disk in A: and this image as B: the disk contents were able to be extracted. These were them placed on a normal DS40 Microbee disk for ease of future use. The system track was also transferred.
This Viatel program was written by Conal Walsh in 1985 and released by his Big Bee Software company. Since the viatel service no longer exists it was a bit difficult to test it fully, but appears to work on all disk drive Microbees including the Premium 128k Not tested on the 256TC.
The manual was also on the disk as a Wordstar image but typing it to the screen produced a distorted display. Its been left on the disk in its original form but also converted to a PDF for convenience. The floppy label was also scanned.
So in the MbeeTech Repository in the Microbee\Software\Applications folder we placed
viatel_big_bee_software_ds40.dsk
viatel_manual_big_bee_software.pdf <-- in Microbee\Documentation\Manuals\Software folder
viatel_terminal_program.jpg <-- in Microbee\Documentation\Pictures\Disks\5.25_inch folder
The Microbee disk was a 5.25" disk but was not the normal type. It was a standard density Microbee 40 track disk with 18 sectors of 256bytes/sec as produced by early 56k Microbee systems. The Greaseweasle produced SCP image was first converted to a HFE image and put onto a Gotek. The image booted and the program was able to be run. The SCP image was then converted to a raw image and when using a 56k boot disk in A: and this image as B: the disk contents were able to be extracted. These were them placed on a normal DS40 Microbee disk for ease of future use. The system track was also transferred.
This Viatel program was written by Conal Walsh in 1985 and released by his Big Bee Software company. Since the viatel service no longer exists it was a bit difficult to test it fully, but appears to work on all disk drive Microbees including the Premium 128k Not tested on the 256TC.
The manual was also on the disk as a Wordstar image but typing it to the screen produced a distorted display. Its been left on the disk in its original form but also converted to a PDF for convenience. The floppy label was also scanned.
So in the MbeeTech Repository in the Microbee\Software\Applications folder we placed
viatel_big_bee_software_ds40.dsk
viatel_manual_big_bee_software.pdf <-- in Microbee\Documentation\Manuals\Software folder
viatel_terminal_program.jpg <-- in Microbee\Documentation\Pictures\Disks\5.25_inch folder
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ChickenMan
ChickenMan