Large Amiga Disk Collection Found...

[r.cade]

OK, hopefully this is not against the rules. I am not price fishing or anything like that, I am just putting out this question to ask for advice on how to handle it since it is a really odd situation.

I recently received over 6,000 (yes, that's correct) disks from an old Amiga guy that passed away some years ago. It's a huge collection stored in 10 or so VHS VCR cabinets with drawers that happen to fit the disks in two rows each. The disks are all in great shape and organized. It looks to me like he either was an extreme collector, or a pirate group librarian, or possibly ran a BBS.

It took quite some doing to transport these to my home, and it takes up a lot of space (about the size of a large bedroom dresser). I did pay something to his survivors for the collection, so it wasn't free to me. I thought I could do something with it (archive it, etc.) but it is just daunting due to the sheer size of it.

I am in Augusta, GA, USA which is in the Southeastern US. I wondered if there is anyone who would like to travel to get them from me, or should I split them up by drawer and sell them off to collectors in bite-sized pieces that can be shipped? They are not originals, so they would be pretty much sold as-is, "blank disks".

[chip]

It would be great to archive the disks in ADF format to share the collection

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by r.cade

OK, hopefully this is not against the rules. I am not price fishing or anything like that, I am just putting out this question to ask for advice on how to handle it since it is a really odd situation.

I recently received over 6,000 (yes, that's correct) disks from an old Amiga guy that passed away some years ago. It's a huge collection stored in 10 or so VHS VCR cabinets with drawers that happen to fit the disks in two rows each. The disks are all in great shape and organized. It looks to me like he either was an extreme collector, or a pirate group librarian, or possibly ran a BBS.

It took quite some doing to transport these to my home, and it takes up a lot of space (about the size of a large bedroom dresser). I did pay something to his survivors for the collection, so it wasn't free to me. I thought I could do something with it (archive it, etc.) but it is just daunting due to the sheer size of it.

I am in Augusta, GA, USA which is in the Southeastern US. I wondered if there is anyone who would like to travel to get them from me, or should I split them up by drawer and sell them off to collectors in bite-sized pieces that can be shipped? They are not originals, so they would be pretty much sold as-is, "blank disks".

Mostly a BBS archive from the old days. The guy used a VHS tape reader/recorder to store the software on VHS tapes.

This system was running on A600 1200 or above

EDIT : Video Backup System Amiga ! That's the software used for that. It requires a 68020 (68000 minimum).

[BippyM]

he stored 3.5 inch disks in drawers designed to hold VHS tapes, not that they are stored ON vhs tapes (I don't believe!)

[r.cade]

They aren't on VHS tapes in this case- these are 3.5" disks inside the VHS storage containers.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by r.cade

They aren't on VHS tapes in this case- these are 3.5" disks inside the VHS storage containers.

ah awesome !!!

Then your friend is Diskripper. That what our friends at BS1 used to extract ADF out of the BS1 disk collection

Do you have an A1200 with hard drive to dump the disks ? this collection should hold some rare or impossible to find softwares

[r.cade]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

ah awesome !!!

Then your friend is Diskripper. That what our friends at BS1 used to extract ADF out of the BS1 disk collection

Do you have an A1200 with hard drive to dump the disks ? this collection should hold some rare or impossible to find softwares

I'm really just looking to pass them off to someone who has the time to do this... It would be a huge undertaking. I've already archived thousands of C64 disks over the years, so I think I have had enough for a while.

[clenched]

Well that would be a ~300 miles round trip for me. Between $50-$60 fuel cost for my van. Afraid I will have to pass. It would be nice to have supply of extra disks though. Just not 6000.

Some fun calculator stuff as long as it was out:

- Archiving 5 disks per day this task will be completed in 3.29 years.
- a stack of 6000 floppies at 1/16" is 31.25 feet tall.
- selling as blanks at a quarter apiece grosses $1500

[r.cade]

Originally Posted by clenched

Well that would be a ~300 miles round trip for me. Between $50-$60 fuel cost for my van. Afraid I will have to pass. It would be nice to have supply of extra disks though. Just not 6000.

Some fun calculator stuff as long as it was out:

- Archiving 5 disks per day this task will be completed in 3.29 years.
- a stack of 6000 floppies at 1/16" is 31.25 feet tall.
- selling as blanks at a quarter apiece grosses $1500

I thought about that last bit and I may just break these up into 30x200 sets and sell them off. That way they can be shipped reasonably...

[Predseda]

a photo please!

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by clenched

Well that would be a ~300 miles round trip for me. Between $50-$60 fuel cost for my van. Afraid I will have to pass. It would be nice to have supply of extra disks though. Just not 6000.

Some fun calculator stuff as long as it was out:

- Archiving 5 disks per day this task will be completed in 3.29 years.
- a stack of 6000 floppies at 1/16" is 31.25 feet tall.
- selling as blanks at a quarter apiece grosses $1500

the BS1 collection is 12000 floppies. It has been done in what.... less than 2 months.

Honestly, if it was not that heavy, i would have said, ok, let's make a deal.

But it's not :'(

Diskripper is extremely fast to do the job. It makes and saves ADF very quickly.

PS : the kryoflux or any other board are not suited for that. With them, it's too slow to do.

But the problem is the man workforce needed to imagine everything :/

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by clenched

Well that would be a ~300 miles round trip for me. Between $50-$60 fuel cost for my van. Afraid I will have to pass. It would be nice to have supply of extra disks though. Just not 6000.

Some fun calculator stuff as long as it was out:

- Archiving 5 disks per day this task will be completed in 3.29 years.
- a stack of 6000 floppies at 1/16" is 31.25 feet tall.
- selling as blanks at a quarter apiece grosses $1500

Preservation is the real deal. The content must be preserved.

In the same vein, we could help you clenched with the fuel cost if you can pick the whole set of disks.

I wonder what our fellows on EAB would think about that ? Guys ?

[r.cade]

Originally Posted by Predseda

a photo please!

I will take some this evening, but it's not that interesting unless you just want to see the sheer size of it for fun.

[malko]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Preservation is the real deal. The content must be preserved.

Yes !!!! There is no question about it !

If you were not leaving so far, I would have helped you in the process of imaging the disks.

There are probably people here in EAB who live closer and can help in the imaging process ?
Guys, whether you're more coders, graphic designers, musicians, gamers, lamers ()... show yourself! This project needs help.

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

[...] In the same vein, we could help you clenched with the fuel cost if you can pick the whole set of disks. [..]

If no one closer can help, I second the idea

Originally Posted by clenched

[...] - Archiving 5 disks per day this task will be completed in 3.29 years. [...]

Diskripper rips faster than this . More than 5 disks per day could be achieved.

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

the BS1 collection is 12000 floppies. It has been done in what.... less than 2 months.[...]

And even if it takes 6 months, it doesn't matter if the preservation is made...

[TjLaZer]

Are you on Facebook? You could ask in the commodore Amiga group as someone near you would be interested.

[clenched]

Originally Posted by malko

Diskripper rips faster than this . More than 5 disks per day could be achieved.

You guys are overlooking some things. I own nothing but oldskool hardware. My GVP-A530 still has the original Quantum 40 meg hard drive. I'm not accustomed to the enormous flash card sizes. So even if it was stripped down to a bare minimum, it will hold just so many disks.

Now factor in those images must be transferred to a spare PC via parallel port. Not as slow as serial but still slow. The USB stick must be moved from this PC to another connected to the internet. At last they can finally be uploaded.

This doesn't take into account nuisance tasks like cataloging the material.

Money is not the problem.

[redblade]

Originally Posted by Predseda

a photo please!

I second that. Some photos would be nice

Are they 100% Amiga or are there also PC/Atari stuff in there? I would love to find a collection like that But archiving.... Do you know what hardware he had?

[Mstone]

Woah! That is a cool find! How much were you looking to get for a drawer of disks if you were to do that? And how much for a whole cabinet of disks out of curiosity? And I second wanting to know what hardware it is for.

[DrBong]

Originally Posted by Predseda

a photo please!

Originally Posted by r.cade

I will take some this evening, but it's not that interesting unless you just want to see the sheer size of it for fun.

Yeh, I think the sheer size alone would be worth a photo or two!

Besides, I can't help but wonder if there are any cracks or copies of obscure American games like Monkey Business, TeleWar II and Lance Haffner's "Final Four College Basketball" and "BasketBall: The Pro Game" in your haul?!

[nexus]

im in florida maybe we can work something out
ofc i hope you and them made it fine through the hurricane
just skimmed me as a CAT5