23 Jan
2023
23 Jan
'23
7:20 a.m.
As you say, to each his/her own.
But although mechanical devices are indeed more prone to issues, the same
argument could be applied to the rest of the system; when your unobtainium
PAL or LSI chip fails you'll probably replace it with a modern replacement.
Just a question of where you choose to draw the line.
Personally, I just spent some time this weekend reviving some obscure IMI
hard drives that hadn't been run for at least 25 years and it was a real
delight to not only get them going again but to discover that one had a
functional OS installation on it that I thought I'd lost long ago.
I suppose there's some of that the very first time you get your Gesswein
emulator working, but it ain't the same thing.
Another issue is that I have several hundred floppy disks, some with fairly
rare stuff on them; maybe I'll get around to archiving them some day but in
the meantime they're fairly safe on disk (unlike the box full of extremely
rare Burroughs paper tapes that I threw out before I discovered that there
are folks who are actually interested in that kind of old crap ;-)
m
On Mon, Jan 23, 2023 at 9:38 AM Bill Gunshannon via cctalk <
cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
On 1/23/2023 9:02 AM, Mike Stein via cctalk wrote:
Agreed; might as well just replace the whole
system with an emulator
while
you're at it.
m
On Mon, Jan 23, 2023 at 3:41 AM Christian Corti via cctalk <
cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
> On Sat, 21 Jan 2023, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> Later today I plan to try FlashFloppy. My goal is to eventually
>> replace all of my mechanical floppies with solid state ones.
> Why would one want to do that?
> My goal would be the opposite. Upgrade all vintage computers with floppy
> drives ;-) My experience is that, if handled correctly, floppies are one
> of the most durable media, and they are definitely more fun on vintage
> equipment than any form of modern replacement. For exchanging data
between
> the new and the old world, maybe it can be an
option. But for classic
> computing? No way I would replace a floppy drive if it isn't broken.
>
> Christian
To each his own. My interest is not in museum pieces that stand on a shelf
and look pretty. I like to actually work with them. Mechanical disk
drives
are so old today they are prone to constant failure. None of my
original TRS-80
drives still function. If I replace them with TEAC FD55's they are no
longer
original so what difference is there if I replace them with a GOTEK and
USB Stick?
And the disks themselves become unreliable with repeated use. The
replacements
also allow for trying things the mechanical disks are incapable of.
Like really large
floppies with255 tracks.
bill