I never knew these were actually 90mm, and not actually 3.5in. Surprising, since I'm in a metric country.
Origins of the 3.5in Floppy Disk [video]
21–30 of 60 posts
Re: Origins of the 3.5in Floppy Disk [video]
#22You know we say magnetic media dont last but my 5.25" Floppy Disk are still readable last time I tested it in 2020 during COVID when I was too bored at home. I have some 8" but the computer that had it wouldn't turn on anymore. The PC with 5.25" and 3.5" still does. Not the same could be said about CD though. CDs that were pressed are still ok, not so much for burned CD-R. Most of them are full or errors when reading…
From seeing everyone still archiving on magnetic tape I was under the impression that magnetic media was the gold standard for long time storage.
Re: Origins of the 3.5in Floppy Disk [video]
#23Suppose I pick my 30+ year old Amiga floppies from the basement. Any chance that there are still readable? what would be the simplest way to copy the content on a modern storage so I could inspect them on an emulator.
Re: Origins of the 3.5in Floppy Disk [video]
#24Suppose I pick my 30+ year old Amiga floppies from the basement. Any chance that there are still readable? what would be the simplest way to copy the content on a modern storage so I could inspect them on an emulator.
Just buy a simple USB floppy drive for 15 bucks online. You can even connect it straight to the VM if you feel like it.
Re: Origins of the 3.5in Floppy Disk [video]
#25Suppose I pick my 30+ year old Amiga floppies from the basement. Any chance that there are still readable? what would be the simplest way to copy the content on a modern storage so I could inspect them on an emulator.
I'm currently in the process of dumping all my old Amiga floppies too.
If your basement was relatively not too humid or hot, the disks should all still be readable.
There are two popular USB floppy drive controllers for archiving Amiga disks: KryoFlux and Greaseweazle. You need a standard disk reader to use along (not a USB one).
The KryoFlux is a bit more expensive but can create complete archival level images (called KryoFlux stream). Otherwise both devices will produce floppy images (ADF) that can be used in any Amiga emulator or written back to floppy to use on a real Amiga.
Here's an overview of the available tools, some of them are pretty old, you can't go wrong with the two I listed above: https://www.amigaforever.com/kb/13-118
Re: Origins of the 3.5in Floppy Disk [video]
#26Suppose I pick my 30+ year old Amiga floppies from the basement. Any chance that there are still readable? what would be the simplest way to copy the content on a modern storage so I could inspect them on an emulator.
Just buy a simple USB floppy drive for 15 bucks online. You can even connect it straight to the VM if you feel like it.
A USB floppy drive won't read Amiga disks.
Re: Origins of the 3.5in Floppy Disk [video]
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just buy a simple USB floppy drive for 15 bucks online. You can even connect it straight to the VM if you feel like it.
A USB floppy drive won't read Amiga disks.
You might like this:
Re: Origins of the 3.5in Floppy Disk [video]
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
A USB floppy drive won't read Amiga disks.
You might like this: https://amiga.robsmithdev.co.uk
That looks great, I was not aware this existed.
However, considering you have to build your own custom Arduino board or be on the waiting list to buy one, it's a bit more complicated than "Just buy a simple USB floppy drive for 15 bucks online".
Re: Origins of the 3.5in Floppy Disk [video]
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's my experience as well. I recently imaged - a collection of CD-Roms attached to a computer magazine, 1999-2001 - my own collection of stuff downloaded or backed up around 2003-2004; most of it on Verbatim DVDs, but some on CD-R or CD-RW (likely also from Verbatim) I had very few read errors, and it was impressive especially considering it's more than 50 CDs and that I never payed too much attention to how they…
> a collection of CD-Roms attached to a computer magazine, 1999-2001 Please upload these disc images to Internet Archive if not included already, so that they can be preserved for the future. Downloads which used to be publicly available might be worthwhile too, but it could be more of a challenge to sort these out.
That’s exactly why I imaged those in the first place :)
Well, that, and to relive those years, find the games included in those magazines and finally play them on a Voodoo 2 instead of a poor S3 Virge…
Re: Origins of the 3.5in Floppy Disk [video]
#30Suppose I pick my 30+ year old Amiga floppies from the basement. Any chance that there are still readable? what would be the simplest way to copy the content on a modern storage so I could inspect them on an emulator.
(I'm the video author)
For the Amiga you have some really good options, I would personally recommend getting a standard PC 3.5in drive and a GreaseWeazle floppy controller which adapts it to USB with extreme low level control for reading disks.
This will also allow the WinUAE Amiga emulator to directly read the disks in the drive!