4 ms·

All of my cassettes and most of my 5,25" floppies don't work. My drives are also starting to fail, so I recently got some new 3,5" drives installed and wrote ab

by forinti 16y ago

All of my cassettes and most of my 5,25" floppies don't work. My drives are also starting to fail, so I recently got some new 3,5" drives installed and wrote about it here (portuguese only, I'm afraid): http://alquerubim.blogspot.com/2010/07/upgrade-historico.html http://alquerubim.blogspot.com/2010/07/upgrade-historico.htm... The only floppies that still work are those that came in those nice black folders from Acornsoft.

jacquesm 16y ago
With cassettes the problem is usually copy-through, with one layer influencing the next on the wound up spools so you get pre and post echos of the signal. You can possibly fix that using a bunch of processing. The disks is a harder problem, surprising though, that they've already degraded that much, I would have expected the 5 1/4" to be readable a bit longer than this.
- forinti 16y ago
  Well, this is Brazil (hot and humid) and they did have to endure about 10 years in my dad's shed, so I didn't really expect them to still work. The BBC, on the other hand, only requires maintenance on the power source's capacitors every 10 years or so (I've changed them twice so far). It's quite a sturdy machine!
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    Yes, electrolytic caps tend to dry out over time. There are special ones that are mil-spec that don't have that problem, or you could try your luck with Tantalum. The Sprague brand used to have fairly affordable long life electrolytic caps, maybe you can find those where you live or order them online. That way it's a one time affair. On another note, if you open up the power supply you'll find a bunch of coils in there, some of them are fairly loosely wound, eventually the windings will rub their way through the insulation and short out. It's not a bad idea to put some hotmelt on those windings to dampen the vibration. Just a little line on either side will do wonders.

by forinti 16y ago

jacquesm 16y ago

With cassettes the problem is usually copy-through, with one layer influencing the next on the wound up spools so you get pre and post echos of the signal. You can possibly fix that using a bunch of processing. The disks is a harder problem, surprising though, that they've already degraded that much, I would have expected the 5 1/4" to be readable a bit longer than this.

forinti 16y ago
Well, this is Brazil (hot and humid) and they did have to endure about 10 years in my dad's shed, so I didn't really expect them to still work. The BBC, on the other hand, only requires maintenance on the power source's capacitors every 10 years or so (I've changed them twice so far). It's quite a sturdy machine!
- jacquesm 16y ago
  Yes, electrolytic caps tend to dry out over time. There are special ones that are mil-spec that don't have that problem, or you could try your luck with Tantalum. The Sprague brand used to have fairly affordable long life electrolytic caps, maybe you can find those where you live or order them online. That way it's a one time affair. On another note, if you open up the power supply you'll find a bunch of coils in there, some of them are fairly loosely wound, eventually the windings will rub their way through the insulation and short out. It's not a bad idea to put some hotmelt on those windings to dampen the vibration. Just a little line on either side will do wonders.