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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Hi, <br>
<br>
Just my two cents since we get involved with older equipment
(specifically a line of GCA pattern generators and steppers) on a
regular basis :<br>
<br>
- PING (it's a Linux-based GPL mirroring/backup/restore utility on
a bootable CD) does a reasonable job of mirroring PC hard drives
to pretty much any other media including USB drives and network
shares<br>
<br>
- for things like SunOS on SparcStations, you can also do a mirror
image of a disk to an NFS network (there is GPL NFS server
software for Windows) just using the standard UNIX dd command.
I've managed, without too much trouble, to get the contents of two
SCSI drives in an XLS Stepper into image files on a Windows
machine using this technique.<br>
<br>
- for DOS machines running software and not talking to special
hardware, DOSBox or any virtual machine software
(QEMU,VirtualBox,VmWare etc) usually works pretty well. The backup
requirements then amount to making a backup copy of the virtual
machine disk file. SmartSet analysis software for GCA steppers
will run happily under DOSBox <br>
<br>
- you can run Windows in its various incarnations (XP,98SE etc) as
a virtual machine. I have the most luck with VmWare but VirtualBox
does a reasonable job as well. The backup requirement then again
becomes just making a backup copy of the virtual disk file. Custom
hardware drivers seem to work okay, at least for the ones that I
have tried under XP but your mileage may vary. Windows software
controlling a machine won't really be 'real-time' in the same way
as DOS software so an emulation may still be fast enough. <br>
<br>
- if the hardware interfaces are 'generic' then the virtual
machine has a better chance of working. We do an Ultratech XLS
stepper (originally built around a SparcStation2) upgrade with a
virtual machine running on a Windows/Linux host but the interfaces
to hardware are just the standard serial ports and network
connections (admittedly 10base2 but there are adapters to get from
coax to RJ45)<br>
<br>
- we run PDP-11 emulations for a line of GCA steppers under DOS
but the connections to the actual stepper are standard serial
ports and a conventional parallel port to our own hardware
interface to the stepper. The motherboard then can be whatever is
available (DOS will boot on pretty much anything) and backups just
involve copying files to some safe location. mTCP is modern
freeware that will set up DOS as an FTP server so that you can get
files into and out-of the DOS machine without much difficulty<br>
<br>
- for older PC based systems (usually involving ISA bus
peripherals and DOS) the problem can generally be more about
getting CPU speeds that keep the software happy. There are still
lots of industrial suppliers of motherboards with ISA-bus support
but the CPU clock speeds are the usual 1.5GHz and higher. Older
DOS software, written for 40MHz 386 CPUs (DFAS software for GCA
steppers comes to mind) can get very cranky at high CPU clock
speeds. If the DOS system is doing real time control then virtual
machines may not be useful but if the priority of the DOS
emulation is high enough and the the host CPU speed is fast enough
then the virtual DOS machine might still be worth evaluating.<br>
<br>
So for older systems (and no question that it will totally depend
on the system), it might be worth evaluating some kind of virtual
machine for the PC tools since the hard disk problems go away,
disk backups just become file backups and old operating systems
can get moved from one motherboard to another while the virtual
peripherals stay the same. Some of the virtual machine software
(e.g. QEMU, DOSEMU, DOSBOX) come with virtual CPU speed adjustment
which may help in certain situations. The evaluation is pretty
risk free since most Virtual Machine software is free (VmWare has
commercial software as well) as is the software that will make
image copies of the necessary hard drives. <br>
<br>
On 2014-11-13 10:16 AM, Shivakumar Bhaskaran wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black">Hi
,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black">At
UIUC We had three Plasma Therm PECVD/RIE tool, one of them
were from 90s and OS is windows98 and the CPU was aging we
had issues with the hardware, we tried replacing the
hardware but was not successful, we purchased a new CPU from
the Plasma Therm to see whether it will support the old
plasma therm. With little bit effort from IT folks and
spending more time in upgrading the software and tried to
configure the communication port we were able to make a
backup. So we have one CPU unit (this will be a spare one)
and three backup hardware (for three tools). So without any
worries we were confident that we can replace the CPU if it
stopped working. As I said I didn’t get immediate solution,
this took us more than 3months to figure this out (this was
mainly due to the tool was always in use, I had difficult
time to test the unit with upgraded software)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black">This
might help for some tool but not all, we might be little bit
lucky to see this worked out.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black">--Shiva<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<br>
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<br>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Best regards,<br>
<br>
P. Scott Harris, P.Eng.<br>
H&L Associates<br>
21 Parkmount Crescent<br>
Nepean, Ontario K2H 5T3 Canada<br>
Tel: (613) 828-1462<br>
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