Connection Options for Fanuc M710i RJ2 Controller and PC

Hello,
my name is Emmanouilidis Christos and I am from Greece. I recently came by this thread http://www.robot-forum.com/rob…orum/robot-control-by-pc/ and I found it really interesting. I myself work in a factory where we have 2 robots. Both of them are Fanuc M710i with RJ2 controllers without ethernet support. The file transfer and backup implementation so far was with a PC connected to an automation PLC using FANUC's KFLOPPY but it was a pretty old implementation with windows 95 and an onboard card tied to KFLOPPY and the CPU.

We recently had a PC failure but we are unable to find parts to restore such an old PC with windows 95 so we are trying to find an other way to implement a connection from the robot to a PC just for back-ups.

Please don't flame me for not using the search function. I have studied the forum a lot concerning this matter but I was unable to clarify a way to implement a connection from robot to PC.

The only visible way I found so far to connect the robot to a PC is through the RS232C port since our robots do not support ethernet. IF this is my only option, do you have any suggestions as to how ? The best way so far that came to my mind was to use KFloppy (not the Fanuc one) with a virtual machine running Linux.

Is data Transfer a windows based software ? Is there a way to use Roboguide with RS232 to send and recieve .TP files and or configuration files to the robot ? I already installed roboguide but I am unable to find any menu options regarding on the "real" robot and how to import or export files to it.

It would be greately appreciated if you could quote any threads regarding this matter, I know it has been discussed a lot, and I have collected a lot of usefull infos about the matter but I am unable to put all these pieces of the puzzle together. Is there a software packet to allow me to make an FTP connection to the robot through RS232C or something else ?

Any help would be greately appreciated as I am in a loss here

Quote from pdl

This doesn't really answer your question, but old laptops with clean installations of windows xp and serial ports can be found on ebay for under $100 USD. KFLOPPY works just fine with windows XP.

UPDATE

I managed to salvage the KFLOPPY application from the old HDD and tried to run it in an XP PC i just setup for this occasion. The application itself seems to run, but I am still getting Disk timeout on the TP whenever I try to back-up my files.
I am totally lost and unable to debug the problem. Everything seems to be set-up as it should. I used this thread http://www.robot-forum.com/rob…-rj2-backup-device-error/ as an example and set all my ports up with the same attributes. The PC is hooked up to the controller through the RS232C port located in the front panel of the controller using a serial cable.KFLOPPY opens up and when I try to Emulate and back-up, no transfer occurs...... I m pretty much lost, I can't come up with any ideas to resolve this.

If that helps, in port init setup menu of the teach pendant, P3 (port3) is setup for use with the option PS100/200 DISK. There is another port (P2 on the teach pendant menu) that reads RS232C but when I try to set it up with PS100/200 DISK it reports back port not in use and places this as the option.
I m a couple of hours away of turning the devil's machine to parts