20 Oct
2012
20 Oct
'12
9:14 p.m.
On Sat, 20 Oct 2012, Paul Anderson wrote:
Since the data is stored magnetically, I don't
believe there's a
microscope technology that could do it.
"Disclosing fluid".
It used to be used in magnetic audio and video recording for making
"seamless" splices, by making the signal visible to be able to line up the
diagonal (helical) scan lines.
Monte made some of his own out of finely ground rust! I don't know what
he used as a medium, probably a light oil.
Floppy disks (48tpi and 96tpi) are 1/2mm or 1/4mm trqck to traqck spacing,
and that was very readily visible. Individual bits along a track will
require being able to resolve a bit better than 1/20 degree of rotational
position.
Way too tedious to manually examine the bits and manually decode them,
unless you have a source of extremely cheap labor, such as grad students
or third world workers.
If you can get a clear image, then the software involved to analyze the
flux transitions should be reaily do-able. Think polar coordinates,
incrementing rotation to get the raw flux transition stream of a track,
followed by software quite similar to what cat-weasel, disc-ferret, and/or
any other flux-transition board uses.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com