about archiving original games/programs

[orange]

(I'm not sure if this is offtopic.. sorry)

Would it be wise to put original diskettes in airtight/hermetic_sealed bags to preserve them (because of dust and similar)?

I know that hard disks have breathing holes, so this might actually be bad idea and waste of time.. What do you think?

[Jope]

Add small packets of silica gel in there if you decide to seal them.

[s2325]

It's not waste of time but remember also about magnetic field.

[IFW]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger's_cat

[IFW]

...unless you already have a good read of the disk.
Also, pointless if you can write back the exact same data.

[mr.vince]

Originally Posted by orange

(I'm not sure if this is offtopic.. sorry)

Would it be wise to put original diskettes in airtight/hermetic_sealed bags to preserve them (because of dust and similar)?

I know that hard disks have breathing holes, so this might actually be bad idea and waste of time.. What do you think?

Yes and no. Sealing will also capture moisture in the air (which could indeed be absorbed by silica gel as recommended here).

Usually putting the materials on shelves, in a dark, almost dry room at a constant temperature around 10 degrees celcius (maybe a bit cooler) will help. Make sure this is kind of a bomb shelter with no water pipes nearby.

But: This will not stop the aging of the materials itself. While the packaging itself might last much longer, the magnetic media loses its magentic information. Second, the surface consists of metal particles bound onto plastic, to form the disk platter. While this is highly durable for some amount of time, it will also age. We have experienced this with tapes, as used in professional recording facilities. When rolling of the reel and passing the head, it might happen that the coating is shaved off the plastic carrier.

There is a process called baking, where the reel is put into the oven before usage. The media will be destroyed while playing back, but you get a last chance to make a copy. This needs experience and exact timing, as doing it wrong will result in a melted tape (yummie).

I do not know if this can be done with disks. I assume it can, but there are obviously not many experts in this field. Fact is, the oldest disks we have are much younger than the tapes that are failing today.

[Photon]

Put them in a cardboard box, store in your house in a dry place away from speakers that you play music on.

[mr.vince]

Note: Do never ever push any box containing anything sensible straight against a wall. I had to experience that while the room itself was dry, one wall was not. So the cardboard box soaked water and moisture from the wall, forming a wonderful place for mushrooms to grow on. I had an Alien Breed rot away this way. Sad.

[DH]

Hmm. As we already know, a lifespan of a Video tape is around 50 years (Stored) So I would presume it's roughly the same with a floppy, depending on how much it has been used and subjected to the elements.

Your best bet, would be to digitally store them onto DVD's as .adf's and store them in sealed boxes that don't let the light in + every 6 years re-do the backups onto new DVD's as these media types are also vulnerable and degrade in daylight etc...

I have some old 5¼" floppies, you know the real big ones, and they have degraded enough and have lost some of the data. These floppies were only ever used once and were the original 'Windows 3.1' disks (from a very reliable source )

So, basically, nothing lasts forever without man intervention

[s2325]

Yes, you can store adfs on DVD but I think after years there will be no way to write them back on floppy disks.

[prowler]

Originally Posted by DemonHellraiser

I have some old 5¼" floppies, you know the real big ones, and they have degraded enough and have lost some of the data. These floppies were only ever used once and were the original 'Windows 3.1' disks (from a very reliable source )

I still have some 8-inch (160kB?) floppies (real big ones! ) , which were used with a Motorola 6800 (yes, sixty-eight hundred) development system!

I can't tell what they still have on them, because I haven't even seen an 8-inch floppy drive since those days. I think those disk drives can still be used with programs like Disk2FDI and they can be hooked up to a Catweasel card, but I would think the disks themselves are probably devoid of any readable data after all this time.

[mr.vince]

Originally Posted by s2325

Yes, you can store adfs on DVD but I think after years there will be no way to write them back on floppy disks.

Well Cyclone20 is proof that this can be done, and with hardware to come, this will be even easier. As long as you happen to have drives + media that is working, of course. I assume that people might lose interest in real floppies once the contents haven been moved over... Except for collectors that is.

I think that HxC is a good approach to continue using legacy hardware.

[DH]

Originally Posted by s2325

Yes, you can store adfs on DVD but I think after years there will be no way to write them back on floppy disks.

It's all dependant on what you are able to store, collect, keep and look after. I've got some old 78 records from the 1940's and they are still playable 'cause you *can* still get the sapphire needles to use with them.

Originally Posted by prowler

I still have some 8-inch (160kB?) floppies (real big ones! ) , which were used with a Motorola 6800 (yes, sixty-eight hundred) development system!

I can't tell what they still have on them, because I haven't even seen an 8-inch floppy drive since those days. I think those disk drives can still be used with programs like Disk2FDI and they can be hooked up to a Catweasel card, but I would think the disks themselves are probably devoid of any readable data after all this time.

Maybe you should try prowler You'll never know if there's anything extremely important on them

[prowler]

Originally Posted by DemonHellraiser

Maybe you should try prowler You'll never know if there's anything extremely important on them

Anyone know where I can get an 8-inch floppy disk drive?

[DH]

Yes

Try your local computer museum, there's bound to be one there

Edit: A quote from here http://www.retrotechnology.com/herbs.../s_drives.html

Many people ask me "I want to read 8-inch diskettes on my PC/Windows/Linux machine. Please sell me a complete system, or tell me where to get one." Often they have no idea how this might be accomplished, as though you could just plug-in a USB 8-inch floppy drive! Other people want to read (or write) CP/M diskettes, or very old Mac 400K 3.5" Mac diskettes, on a Windows PC.

To my knowledge, no one sells a "complete" system of hardware and softwre to do the above. To read 8-inch floppy drives on a "PC", you can in principle connect 8-inch drives to a PC'/s floppy controller; you "just" need a drive, with power supply; a 50-pin cable; a connector to adapt the 50-pin cable to your 34-pin floppy controller; and software or software knowledge! Even with that, MOST PC floppy controllers won't read single-density format anyway!

Reading non-MS-DOS disks on a PC, even with the right sized floppy drive, can be difficult. The floppy CONTROLLER on the PC, which does all the work of reading, writing, and formatting, may not be able to accept non-MS-DOS formats, even WITH software. The early Apple disk formats use odd bit patterns for instance. Or it can simply be a problem with knowing which of the MANY MANY CP/M disk formats you need to use with your particular diskettes.

It may be more difficult than I thought

[prowler]

Originally Posted by DemonHellraiser

Yes

Try your local computer museum, there's bound to be one there

Edit: It may be more difficult than I thought

Hey DH, I'm serious!

Thanks for researching the subject.

I think I've got all the necessary equipment/software/knowledge to hook up the drive to my PC if only I had one!

I remember seeing advertisments which ran in Micro Mart when it more closely resembled Exchange & Mart. The advertiser was some sort of computer surplus store (like Greenweld or Bull Electrical, but it wasn't either of those), and they had things like Winchester drives, Shugart, SCSI, MFM, RLL and ESDI hard drives, along with 360K 5¼-inch floppy drives (some with black fascias) and the 8-inch floppy drive too.

Anyone else remember them? I'm sure they were local too, in the Grerater London area (Croydon maybe?)

[DH]

Does it matter what kind of drive it is so long as it accepts the generic 8" floppy?

[alexh]

I too suffered the box against the wall damp thing. Do not think that because it is in a room within your house and not the attic or garage that it is safe from damp. The condensation from the heating and cooling in your house, humidity across the seasons can cause it in boxes against walls.

It is a VERY good idea NOT to do this.

Also to "rotate" your boxes around every six months or so, if you have any problems you will notice them early. Not like me who after five years moved some boxes in the spare room and discovered not only was the contents of the box ruined, but also the carpet and the plaster on the wall behind the box!

[prowler]

Originally Posted by DemonHellraiser

Does it matter what kind of drive it is so long as it accepts the generic 8" floppy?

I'm not sure if there are single-sided and double-sided variants, but I would think they're all the same density (single density?)

I really can't remember much else about them.

[Loedown]

I would suggest hassling some data centres, they may very well have kept, or keep some old 8" drives or spares.

If you'd asked me this question some few years back, I would have sold you my boxed and never used 8" NEC drive, which was shipped off to France for the owner of a Fairlight CMI synth.

Paul