Mr Ian Primus wrote:
I've heard this doom and gloom talk about
"when all the drives are dead"
and "when nothing is left to read $MEDIA" - and while I admit that these
things are likely to happen eventually, I also don't believe it's a problem
for any of us.
I admit I do tend to be interested in trying to preserve things for longer
than my own lifespan :-)
Working examples of common microcomputer hardware is
everywhere. The trick
is to maintain it. I don't see any problem in keeping an Apple IIe in
operational condition so that it will still work in the year 2050.
But how do you "maintain" floppy media?
Sure, the machines can be kept going - replacing a chip here and there, or
when supplies of those chips have gone, by simulating the device's function in
whatever logic is flavour of the period.
But it seems apparent that floppies fail - either through wear or natural
deterioration. You could simulate the drive and media (as I mentioned), but
then it's not "floppy disk" any more.
I don't think anyone's going to invest the time and money needed to truly
preserve floppies intact; that sounds like a lot of expensive analysis into
why binders fail, and a lot of expensive research to then fix the problem - a
problem that almost nobody in the commercial arena cares about.
I suppose someone might magic up a way of creating DIY floppies from scratch
in a home lab, but I'm not holding my breath.
And, it's not like this stuff goes away
completely. Spring-driven
phonographs are still around. Wire recorders are still around. And floppy
drives will still be around in 20 years. And yes, media will age - but a
lot of it should still be readable, and Athana still makes floppy disks to
this day. You can get new media now. I have disks from the 70's that still
work fine.
My *guess* would be that there'll still be a lot of floppies readable in 20
years - maybe somewhere around 50% or 60% of what we have now. But in 50 or
100 years? I think that one day they'll be gone. (note that I'm talking
*using* here - I don't doubt that someone will magic up a no-contact way of
reading floppy contents one day...)
But, we're drifting off-topic again.
We do that a lot :)
The question is really "Can a
hobbyist, with modern technology, build a device to write new alignmnent
disks?". I definitely think so. Such a device would definitely be a mix of
new and old parts. I mean, why reinvent the disk drive? The basic disk
motor, heads, frame, etc. should be fine.
Yep, it could be done. But how rare are alignment disks? I was forever finding
5.25" ones, so there never seemed any particular shortage to me (I gave up
stockpiling, and just kept a couple of them). Other sizes might be different,
but I suspect there are a good number of 8" ones around amongst collectors who
have significant quantities of 8" hardware. Not so sure about 3.5", 3" etc.
though.