Listing of what is on each EHD

[navychop]

It appears that spaces may be your friend. I'd run a character analysis and place each portion of the string into an array that has a space before or after it. Then work forwards and backwards in order to snip out portions of the string that don't include alpha/numeric data. This would allow you to capture everything, regardless of where they appear in the original string.

That's a thought. Direct to the point. Probably make it a CSV and import it into a spreadsheet and let the spreadsheet do the sorting. And actually, the necessary approach. I've looked at another CAT and the file size, character count and character spacing are different from the first CAT. Those "nonsense" printed characters are no doubt of different lengths in hex.

More complicated, it gets. Look at the PDF below. The program name, "Critical Situation" & "Terra Nova" is in about the same location (well, in the same order) in both PDFs. But the episode names, "Siege Education" & "Occupation Resistance" are in entirely different locations.

I'm finding a little, but not much, online on these file formats so far. I have sent a PM to RandallA, as he has worked to transfer from one EHD to another and may know something about the cat file.

BTW the bm file contains the cat info, plus info on, presumably, programs before and after it.

I'm looking at Free Pascal. But I'm realizing that I might as well just convert an old PC to being a dedicated Linux box, just to work with the Pascal. That might require redoing the downloads of Mint, etc, in 32 bit form rather than 64. More time that I'm short on.

View attachment Linux EHD cat 2.pdf

 

[navychop]

The only language that tripped me up was LISP. *barf*

For me, it was SNOBOL. It simply infuriated me! It shouldn't work. NOTHING that disorganized should work!

​

 

[navychop]

ADA? I wasted many hours trying to learn that! PITA.

As for where the cat file is described, you might look into the relevant part of PVRexplorer, which IIRC works even for 722 receivers.

Lady Lovelace was LOVELY. A nice improvement over Pascal.

Now, if only I could find another person that also liked the language.

COBOL was what I used mostly in the Navy. I called it the "Tell me 5 times" language. Or was it 3 times? OBE. At the time, the ONLY way to get decimal calculations right.

I'll look into PvrExplorer.

 

[navychop]

Looks like PvrExplorer Pro stopped at the 625. Still looking at other versions.

 

[BBCInc]

Mint is a very nice Linux distribution. I would be interested in how you physically interface the EHD with a Mint live distribution.

There are Ada compilers for Linux, GNAT for one. My personal preference for a project like you describe and Yespage pseudo codes, is C (fairly easy low-level access to parsing ASCII strings out of files). Haven't looked for or been aware of Pascal for Linux. Its main role used to be as a teaching tool for higher order languages.

 

[navychop]

Mint is a very nice Linux distribution. I would be interested in how you physically interface the EHD with a Mint live distribution.......

That part was easy. I booted the 64 bit version from DVD and just plugged in a USB EHD. Recognized immediately. This Mint is great! WAY better than what I dealt with the last time I dealt with Linux. Might even RTFM, if there is one.

.... Haven't looked for or been aware of Pascal for Linux. Its main role used to be as a teaching tool for higher order languages.

There are a few, but Free Pascal seems the most popular. If I pursue this, it will be interesting to see what support it provides for jumping folder to folder with the folder names unknown.

Absolutely it was meant to be a teaching language. But I was ornery and used it a lot. I remember writing some program that went over a thousand lines, just to show that it could be used with linked lists and several data files at once. I remember that program had several data entry screens, but I sure don't remember exactly what it was for. Probably a customer list with order taking, maybe a little inventory. So far back. I was a THUG - member of Tidewater Heath Users Group and we did a lot of things just to show off to each other.

Those were the days!



PvrExplorer is a dead end.

 

[BBCInc]

It makes sense that Mint would be plug and play with USB, module integration and customization to emulate Windows functionality seemed to be its strength when I was heavy into comparing Linux distributions 5 or 6 years ago. Now to take it to the next level, wonder how/if it would work under VirtualBox with a Win7 host?

I once wrote a hex/dec/bin conversion program in assembly, Pascal, and C just for the fun of it. Those WERE the days!

 

[dke]

That's a thought. Direct to the point. Probably make it a CSV and import it into a spreadsheet and let the spreadsheet do the sorting. And actually, the necessary approach. I've looked at another CAT and the file size, character count and character spacing are different from the first CAT. Those "nonsense" printed characters are no doubt of different lengths in hex.

More complicated, it gets. Look at the PDF below. The program name, "Critical Situation" & "Terra Nova" is in about the same location (well, in the same order) in both PDFs. But the episode names, "Siege Education" & "Occupation Resistance" are in entirely different locations.

downloads of Mint, etc, in 32 bit form rather than 64. More time that I'm short on.

View attachment 95686

When I was checking out the 'cat' file the Episode/Info started at offset 8A in all that I checked so that shouldn't be a problem though you may need to check the first string for which receiver it wrote it. The files I checked were done on my old 722, looking at your PDF the Hopper looks to be writing at a different offset.

I had thought about doing it but it's just been way too long since I've done any programming, but I would imagine there is already plenty of GNU source code out there that could be modified fairly easily to accomplish the task.

Dan

 

[TheKrell]

Lady Lovelace was LOVELY.

She may have been lovely, but she was VERY high maintenance.

Looks like PvrExplorer Pro stopped at the 625. Still looking at other versions.

There is a version for the 722, but I don't recall whether it merely transferred the ts file without naming it appropriately, or rather read the cat file like the older version did.

 

[navychop]

Yes, she was. But written properly, you could follow what was going on, even with little to no documentation. Not at all like C & it's ilk- truly a write only language.

 

[navychop]

It makes sense that Mint would be plug and play with USB, module integration and customization to emulate Windows functionality seemed to be its strength when I was heavy into comparing Linux distributions 5 or 6 years ago.......

I think I can even forget things like "mount."

....Now to take it to the next level, wonder how/if it would work under VirtualBox with a Win7 host?......

That's an excellent idea, and would make things easier for others that I distribute it to, assuming I ever actually do it.

.....I once wrote a hex/dec/bin conversion program in assembly, Pascal, and C just for the fun of it. Those WERE the days!

That sounds like a class assignment we had to do.

My first, owned, electronic computer was an RCA COSMAC VIP using the 1802 CPU. For the longest, we only had assembler to work with, and I still remember some commands (F8 load immediate, 30 unconditional branch, 32 conditional branch). We later got a version of BASIC, but by then we were too accustomed to our hex codes. I still have that computer in storage, and an artillery program I wrote for it. SIGH. I need a wayback machine.

 

[dare2be]

My first owned computer was an Apple //e back in high school. I taught myself Apple Assembly coding and Pascal. I still have the books on my bookshelf, and the computer in storage. Fun times.

I wrote a TSO/REXX program on the IBM mainframe at work in the early 90s that was basically a 4-player client-server battleship game. I sure wish I could find that source code again, I think I have it stored on a floppy somewhere.

 

[navychop]

And a floppy drive.

I finally threw away some of my old programs that were on 8" floppies. The paper tape and punched cards went long ago.

 

[navychop]

Well, the old XP PRO PC I planned for this project is no more. So I'm now looking at a Dell Vostro 2510 that was a Vista Business machine. It was a nice laptop. Not sure what shape it's in now. I might have another one laying around to check out. Dual boot would be nice.

 

[navychop]

Vostro has 4GB RAM, 250 GB HDD 32 bit Core2 Duo T5670 1.8GHz wireless and BT. 4 USB 2. But since it has Office and Access, it might be the last machine I have Access on so I'm going to try to find another laptop, or get a cheap mobo that can use my old XP CPU & RAM.

 

[navychop]

ARISE! And be UNDEAD!

Now that I’ve retired, I think I’ll restart this project early next year.

Thank you, TomC83, for finding this old thread for me.

 

[jerryez]

There are a few movies that I could or have watched more than once, but not many. Most movies, once is enough and some movies once was too much. So, why do you have 6 EHD's full of movies or tv shows.

 

[Bobby]

There are a few movies that I could or have watched more than once, but not many. Most movies, once is enough and some movies once was too much. So, why do you have 6 EHD's full of movies or tv shows.

Maybe because your habits don’t mirror the entire population. I have 351 DVD/BR in my collection of movies and concerts. Within that collection is every Oscar winning Best Picture, all 92 of them. I wouldn’t expect the entire population to want or have the same kind of thing.

 

[navychop]

I recorded the entire series of Desperate Housewives. And others. Will one day watch.

 

[Jim5506]

Must be desperate!