SUMMARY: Migrating from a DECstation - data transfer

[Adam Wildavsky <adam@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> 1. What's a reasonable way to transfer data from a DECstation to a PC,
>    preferably via a serial port?

Was I surprised! When I reached my client's office I found he had a 
DECstation of sorts. It's a model 316+, and appears to be an ISA 
Intel-based PC fitted out with a SCSI card and SCO Unix. Since this 
is an Ultrix DECstation list this rendered some of the answers I 
received irrelevant, but others were right on target.

John Burch <jburch1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> offered to transfer the data for 
me, for an extremely  reasonable fee, by sending a hard drive from 
one site to the other. I didn't take him up on it, but it was a 
useful fallback.

Several correspondents suggested setting up a TCP/IP ethernet 
network. This did not seem like an option in my case, since the 316+ 
had no ethernet port and a quick check of the OS revealed no TCP/IP 
utilities.

Several correspondents suggested kermit, and one, J. Rose 
<jrose@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, noted that I should use a large block size.

I ended up using Kermit and sending the files to a Macintosh running 
ZTerm. The large block size proved vital, effectively tripling 
throughput to 1Kbyte/second. I also learned that using kermit one 
must increase the block size on both ends, otherwise it will use the 
-smaller- of the two!

For a cable I used a 9-pin to 25-pin PC-to-modem cable, plus a 
"Smartcable" I've had for years - it's a marvellous device which has 
not failed me yet.

Thanks to everyone who replied. I hope to get a look at a "real" 
DECstation one day!

-- 
Adam Wildavsky
adam@xxxxxxxxxxxx

"The check's in the mail."
"Of course I'll still respect you in the morning."
"I'll summarize for the list."