lfb107(a)psu.edu (Les Berry) wrote: I've archived a number of my Terak 8-inch floppies by sending a disk image out the serial port, and capturing on a PC. I also wrote utilities to extract the files and get directories from these disk images containing UCSD P-System and RT-11 file systems. See my web page for more info. It would be great if there were a highly portable program that could be adapted easily to any system that would somehow (serial, Ethernet, file system, etc.) make a copy of all the blocks on a device. Of course, some operating systems already have such utilities that can be called into service for this task, but I think we need something that goes a bit deeper. For example, old media tends to have errors. This block-transfer program (and perhaps its resulting disk image) need to be smart enough to mark some blocks as "known bad" to let external programs work around the problem. Various built-in block-copy programs might react to this error in different ways, none of them pleasant to the data restoration task, of course. Most emulators can use a pristine disk image. Some emulators for archaic computers have developed their own formats for storing floppy, hard disk and tape images. Tim Shoppa &lt;shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca&gt; wrote: It would be great if there were more utilities that could operate on these floppy/hard/paper/cassette/N-track images: reading and writing files to them, getting directories of them, etc. jpero(a)cgo.wave.ca wrote: Paper-based media? You mean manuals, or Cauzin soft-strips? :-) Laser-printer and even some copier toners drive me bananas; a little heat or pressure or out-gassing plastic nearby and they fuse pages together or flake toner particles. I may be completely off-base about this, but I've always regarded this as an urban legend, too. Go ahead, try to damage the bits on a floppy with a refrigerator magnet. It's not the same as a bulk eraser. - John Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>