20 Oct
2007
20 Oct
'07
2:29 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
But if the truth be told, I'm perfectly happy
*reading* floppies with
what I have here--once. What I'd like to do is *accurately* archive
what I've got on, say, CD-R or DVD and get rid of the pile of slowly-
decomposing library floppies once and for all. If I needed a floppy
of any sort, then I could simply take some magic box with a CD drive
and a 34- or 50-pin header on it and hook it to whatever system that
normally takes a floppy and be in business, at least for reading.
Yep, went through that at the museum because some people were advocating
putting media on the archive shelves - but it's not an idea I'm a fan off; the
stuff's just too prone to damage and decay. Much better to archive it off to
modern storage in such a way that it can be recreated as-and-when needed. The
originals would get kept "just in case", but the plan wouldn't be to
ordinarily touch them once they'd been archived (which would likely mean
they'd get boxed up and put into suitable storage - *not* taking up valuable
space on archive shelving)
I really don't care much about *writing*
floppies.
Now, with museum hat on I do (see above) - but not so much for things in my
own collection. There, getting the data onto modern media *and interpreting it
on modern media* is more useful.
As far as using traditional imaging tools; it's no
good. There's too
much that a 765 can't read.
Yep, judging by Dave's experiences, 765 quirks seem widespread - there's an
awful lot of subtle variations out there. Then on top of that, there's the
stuff that even a "100% pure" 765 won't read anyway.