Several of the HP workstations include floppy drives. These drives will read and write MS-DOS diskettes. There are many ways to make use of the drive, from the raw device level approach to some utilities that make life a lot easier, but won't do everything. This helpfile deals only with the latter option. In order to use these tools, you will have to add
/usr/local/bin/mtools
to your search path if you don't already have it set up. This will give you access to several commands including, but not restricted to:
mcd mdir mformat ...etc...
To see all the commands, simply ls /usr/local/bin/mtools. At this time there are no man pages available. If the workstation is properly set up, it will recognize drive A: as the floppy drive. If you have problems, please email below. The README file from the software installation gives a lot of additional details on how to use the utilities. It is recommended that you review these items as in addition to the different names (mdir vs. dir, etc.) there are also other issues related to DOS commands on Unix that require your attention (specifically, changes in standard procedure and the occasional need to include quotes around parts of your command string.)
The original supplemental documentation follows:
MTOOLS
version 3.9.5
Mtools is a public domain collection of programs to allow Unix systems
to read, write, and manipulate files on an MSDOS filesystem (typically a
diskette).
The following MSDOS commands are emulated:
Mtool MSDOS
name equivalent Description
----- ---- -----------
mattrib ATTRIB change MSDOS file attribute flags
mcd CD change MSDOS directory
mcopy COPY copy MSDOS files to/from Unix
mdel DEL/ERASE delete an MSDOS file
mdir DIR display an MSDOS directory
mformat FORMAT add MSDOS filesystem to a low-level format
mlabel LABEL make an MSDOS volume label.
mmd MD/MKDIR make an MSDOS subdirectory
mrd RD/RMDIR remove an MSDOS subdirectory
mread COPY low level read (copy) an MSDOS file to Unix
mren REN/RENAME rename an existing MSDOS file
mtype TYPE display contents of an MSDOS file
mwrite COPY low level write (copy) a Unix file to MSDOS
You should be able to just close your eyes and pretend you're on an MSDOS
system. Everything should work the same... except for the added 'm' at
the beginning of each command.
I really wanted to avoid the use of a 'text' mode and a 'data' mode when
transferring files, but I couldn't find a better way. It gets rather
confusing and it's quite possible to mess up a file if you apply the
text mode when it is not appropriate (ie: to a COM or EXE file).
The pattern matching routine more closely resembles Unix than MSDOS.
For example, "*" matches all MSDOS files in lieu of "*.*".
The use of wildcards (or the '\' separator) will require the names to be
enclosed in quotes to protect them from the shell. For example:
RIGHT: mcopy "a:*.c" .
will copy all files on the A: disk with the extension .C to the
current Unix directory.
WRONG: mcopy a:*.c .
will cause the shell to expand a:*.c in the current Unix directory
(which is probably not what you wanted) then copy that list of
files (if there were any) from A: to the current Unix directory.
RIGHT: mcopy *.c a:
will copy all files with the extension .c in the current Unix
directory to the A: drive. (This time you *want* the shell
the expand the *.c).
The manuals are very terse... it's assumed that the reader is already
familiar with MSDOS.
Mcopy is really a front-end to the low level Mread and Mwrite commands.