27 Nov
1999
27 Nov
'99
5:43 a.m.
IMHO, it makes little sense to retain media for washing-machine-sized disk
drives if you don't retain the drives and maintain them in order to retain
the value of the media. Hindsight is always 20/20, but wouldn't it make
sense to archive data/software on an archival medium, likely, we hope, to
remain useable over time, rather than to store it on what's intended for
on-line storage, and is likely to become obsolete within a couple of years
of when it was developed?
The reason these gargantuan drives are no longer around is because it was
costly and laborious to maintain them in useable condition, with a routine
failure frequency of more than one per week. If you're ever able to recover
your data, you can probably store all the software that ever existed for
that system on a single 8mm cartridge which will fit in your shirt pocket.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Al Kossow <aek(a)spies.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Saturday, November 27, 1999 12:26 PM
Subject: Re: Whats the screwiest thing you collect?
issue
Something
I've been wondering about. These boards look to have been used
to convert ESDI to SCSI for stuff like Apollo's and Sun's. Could they be
used to convert a SCSI drive to work on an ESDI controller?
This is actually a subset of a much more interesting general problem, using
modern storage devices as substitutes for older ones. This is a serious for systems that use 'washing machine' disc
drives (pre-SMDs, like Trident
or
Memorex interfaces) where, unless you were REALLY
careful, you'd end up
with
a big pile of crashed heads and aluminum dust the first
time you spun up a
disc drive that has been sitting in some warehouse for 20+ years.
I have several dozen 80 and 300 meg disc packs that I've had for over 10
years
now that I'm scared to put into a drive, for fear
of losing everything
that's
on them...
The past month or so, I started calling all the old 'data recovery' places,
and
even THEY threw out the equipment to fly a head over
these old packs..