Print PLc-2 ladder or PLC-2 to PLC-5 conversion

Long time viewer, first time poster. First I want to start, yes I know, PLC-2 and PLC-5 do not belong in manufacturing plants anymore, but sometimes you have to play the cards youÂ’re dealt, and move on. No need to discuss upgrades or why they havenÂ’t been done, I have only been at this plant a few months.

Software I have available:
ICOM PLC-2 Ladder Logistics
ICOM PLC-5 Ladder Logistics

PC in question is a windows 7 that I booted up into DOS via a USB drive. I pulled the PLC-2 and PLC-5 software off our server and put onto the drive as well. When launching AB2.exe the main screen loads up just fine. On the bottom of the main screen, there is a line that states something to the effect of no software loaded on C: drive. (IÂ’m home and canÂ’t exactly remember what is said, but IÂ’m wondering if this plays into my issues). When trying to launch the offline viewer from the main screen I get kicked back to the DOS prompt with a message that says software not available. When trying to open OFF2.exe from the DOS cmd, the screen begins to load, but as soon as it opens it crashes back to the DOS prompt. OFF2.exe and OFF2.ovl are both in the PLC-2 folder. When trying to utilize print files, I just get a blank .txt file. IÂ’m guessing this is due to the offline viewer not being able to load, and the ladder being first in the print order. Does this issue seem to be stemming from trying to run DOS on the windows 7, or is there something I am missing?

PLC-2 to PLC-5. I have Lib2pc5.exe, but do not have any .lib files with any of the plc-2 backups that I found on our server. Can someone point me in the right direction as to how the .lib file is generated? After running the lib2pc5.exe, is the next step just importing into the AB5 software?

I appreciate any help that can be provided.

Welcome to the PLCTalk forum community !

Did you use Rufus to make that bootable drive ? Is it MS-DOS, or FreeDOS ?

Are you able to try running DOS 6.22 in a virtual machine (VirtualBox or VMWare) environment instead of trying to get everything to run as though removable storage was the C:\ drive ?

I've had to try to do serial printing with a capture program on the host to try to get actual printouts rather than try to emulate a printer in a VM or attempt to print to a text file, but that might have been with 6200-PLC2 and not AI-2 at all.

My recollection is that AI-2 and AI-5 used Everlock diskette activations, which is what the old Rockwell Software EVMOVE utility used. Do you have images of activation diskettes, or just the software executables ?

Overall, are you doing this to perform a PLC-2 to PLC-5 conversion, to maintain a PLC-2 or PLC-5 system, or are you migrating to a modern control platform ?

Some principle made to be simply forgotten.

ICOM is well over 30 years updated
I dosen't support some later modules
Rockwell took then over and I don't know if you can even get copy actually they have an online and offline package and you need both of each
You would be better off converting them over to Logix
Parts are near impossible to get

Ken,

I am currently setup with FreeDOS, I'm not positive how the bootable drive was made. I've brought up VMWare to our IT, as that is what I have used in the past with success, but currently do not have that option. I'm not overly concerned if I can get an actual print out, because this PLC in question probably only has around 20 rungs of code. If the offline viewer was operational, I would be able to at least take some pictures and go re-write with the T3 Terminal. 95% of the PLC-2's remaining all have printouts in the enclosures, so my plans for upgrading are to just brute force re-code into a studio which I am fine doing. I have the old floppys that contain the activation, but when launching the software executable, the main screen for the AB2.exe actually has the activation present.

Thanks for that context and details.

Your essential question sounds like it can be re-phrased as "how can I get AB2.exe to run correctly under FreeDOS on a modern computer that was booted from a USB drive ?"

And that question is being asked in the context of replacing or re-loading an existing PLC-2 controller that is still in service.

Obviously the actual error messages might be helpful, and it's possible there are still some users running ICOM or AI-2 on old hardware or virtualized computers who can share their setups.

I can't find any references to running AI-2 or ICOM under FreeDOS in the Knowledgebase, and I'm reasonably confident I never tried. One benefit of having a VM would be that you can easily take and post screenshots, instead of literally photographing a PC monitor or describing the screen.

My recollection (aided by some RA Knowledgebase screenshots) is that AI-2 had a banner across the bottom of the screen when you executed AB2.EXE that read something to the effect of


I think you're saying that is present when AB2.EXE launches. I don't have any experience with how you could move activation files with ICOM software; do you recall using something like EVMOVE ? Even using removable media that wasn't a floppy was something we didn't get until EVMOVECF in 2000 or so.

From the AB2.EXE main menu, are there function keys or other ways to launch the offline viewer, or is the only way available to run OFF2.EXE from the DOS command line ?