Recovering “lost” treasure-filled floppy discs with an oscilloscope
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Recovering “lost” treasure-filled floppy discs with an oscilloscope
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Re: Recovering “lost” treasure-filled floppy discs with an oscilloscope
#2Just a little nitpicking note: the spelling of disc versus disk. Per dictionary definition, it's two spellings of the same word. Per convention, "disk" is usually used with magnetic media (like floppies) while "disc" is usually used with optical media (CDs/DVDs/Blu-ray).
It took me as just a little odd to see "floppy disc" even if it's technically correct.
Re: Recovering “lost” treasure-filled floppy discs with an oscilloscope
#3Oh wow, I did not realize that floppy discs used the same exact encoding that was used on tape drives of the era, e.g. the TI-99/4A [1]. The wave file in the article is the exact same sound I'd listen to as a child, loading programs from cassettes.
Total coincidence -- I recently have been recovering games from my old TI-99/4A cassettes, also using an oscilloscope (the same model in fact; for no particularly good reason beyond it was the most convenient way to record off the only tape player I still own), Audacity, and two open-source tools to recover such data [2] and [3].
[1] http://www.unige.ch/medecine/nouspikel/ti99/cassette.htm
Re: Recovering “lost” treasure-filled floppy discs with an oscilloscope
#4Just a little nitpicking note: the spelling of disc versus disk. Per dictionary definition, it's two spellings of the same word. Per convention, "disk" is usually used with magnetic media (like floppies) while "disc" is usually used with optical media (CDs/DVDs/Blu-ray). It took me as just a little odd to see "floppy disc" even if it's technically correct.
I had to Wikipedia what term is used for magneto-optical media. As much as I'd love it to be "disck", alas "disc" (as in "MiniDisc") seems correct in that case.
Re: Recovering “lost” treasure-filled floppy discs with an oscilloscope
#5Fascinating and incredible work.
Re: Recovering “lost” treasure-filled floppy discs with an oscilloscope
#6Just a little nitpicking note: the spelling of disc versus disk. Per dictionary definition, it's two spellings of the same word. Per convention, "disk" is usually used with magnetic media (like floppies) while "disc" is usually used with optical media (CDs/DVDs/Blu-ray). It took me as just a little odd to see "floppy disc" even if it's technically correct.
The blog post uses conventions associated with the machine in question, the BBC Micro, which is an iconic 1980s UK machine. It was pretty much "Disc" back then, e.g. the dreaded "Disc error 0E" from the OS, or the spelling written on the discs themselves, e.g. this Watford Electronics Diagnostics disc:
http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/21293/Diagnostics-Dis...
Not sure if it's a UK thing or a 1980s thing.
Re: Recovering “lost” treasure-filled floppy discs with an oscilloscope
#7Oh wow, I did not realize that floppy discs used the same exact encoding that was used on tape drives of the era, e.g. the TI-99/4A [1]. The wave file in the article is the exact same sound I'd listen to as a child, loading programs from cassettes. Total coincidence -- I recently have been recovering games from my old TI-99/4A cassettes, also using an oscilloscope (the same model in fact; for no particularly good rea…
Great that you're working on something similar! How are you finding those tools for handling degraded tape waveforms? I keep bouncing back and forth between hacking up my own vs. wanting to find some existing tool that has some clever math formula.
Re: Recovering “lost” treasure-filled floppy discs with an oscilloscope
#8Just a little nitpicking note: the spelling of disc versus disk. Per dictionary definition, it's two spellings of the same word. Per convention, "disk" is usually used with magnetic media (like floppies) while "disc" is usually used with optical media (CDs/DVDs/Blu-ray). It took me as just a little odd to see "floppy disc" even if it's technically correct.
The blog post uses conventions associated with the machine in question, the BBC Micro, which is an iconic 1980s UK machine. It was pretty much "Disc" back then, e.g. the dreaded "Disc error 0E" from the OS, or the spelling written on the discs themselves, e.g. this Watford Electronics Diagnostics disc: http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/21293/Diagnostics-Dis... Not sure if it's a UK thing or a 1980s thing.
Fading memories of playing c64 games from both sides of the pond suggest that "disk" was the US spelling and "disc" was the UK.
Re: Recovering “lost” treasure-filled floppy discs with an oscilloscope
#9Just a little nitpicking note: the spelling of disc versus disk. Per dictionary definition, it's two spellings of the same word. Per convention, "disk" is usually used with magnetic media (like floppies) while "disc" is usually used with optical media (CDs/DVDs/Blu-ray). It took me as just a little odd to see "floppy disc" even if it's technically correct.
yeah geez, immediate reaction. Well established just search around that 'disk' became standard. It's weird when someone writes a modern piece like this and like, the whole time they never noticed it's spelt disk everywhere??! It's another one of those things where you ask yourself "what internet do these ppl surf?!"
Re: Recovering “lost” treasure-filled floppy discs with an oscilloscope
#10Just a little nitpicking note: the spelling of disc versus disk. Per dictionary definition, it's two spellings of the same word. Per convention, "disk" is usually used with magnetic media (like floppies) while "disc" is usually used with optical media (CDs/DVDs/Blu-ray). It took me as just a little odd to see "floppy disc" even if it's technically correct.
I had to Wikipedia what term is used for magneto-optical media. As much as I'd love it to be "disck", alas "disc" (as in "MiniDisc") seems correct in that case.
> As much as I'd love it to be "disck"
You reminded me of the https://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Boock_of_darc... :D