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3,000 floppy disk archive (1982–1994)
- duskwuff 11y agoCan someone (OP?) please ask this user to upload this content to the Internet Archive (archive.org)? They love this kind of stuff, and it'll be stored much more permanently there than it would be in a random Dropbox account.
- phusion 11y agoAlso, that random dropbox account is now spitting out an error instead of a download.
- mattdotc 11y agoLuckily, it looks like Jason Scott is already on the case!! https://twitter.com/textfiles/status/590610390817595393 https://twitter.com/textfiles/status/590610390817595393
- Mithrandir 11y agohttps://archive.org/details/frostbyte_1980s_DOS_collection https://archive.org/details/frostbyte_1980s_DOS_collection
- Mithrandir 11y agoOh, and if you want to try out some of the DOS programs in your browser, there's this collection: https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_frostbyte https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_frostbyte
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- noso 11y agoVery valid comment, I would of reached out this morning, but glad it has been sorted.
- _wmd 11y agoPlease for God's sake digitize the whole lot.. there is an entire history of a barely documented civilization on these disks, and it reminds me of something else: BBS operators of the 80s and 90s, where are the copies of those hard drives that you took out of that 286 before you binned it? Google may have bought and destroyed Dejanews, but you're hoarding something much more valuable (IMHO!)
- bluedino 11y agoIs FidoNet archived anywhere?
- externalmodem 11y agoUnfortunately, no. There is no comprehensive archive. There are bits and pieces on the web plus several Fido boards still running with archives going back a decade or so.
- apaprocki 11y agoI restored my old BBS off 250mb tapes after spending a long time piecing together a system able to read them. I was able to get some random files from the file section, and even got it up and running in DOSBox, login, and read my inbox from 22 years ago. I was actually able to track down one of the ANSI artists who made one of the menus I used because he publicly linked his identity to his past ANSI work. He's a graphic designer now and was happy to get an e-mail bringing back memories of the past :)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- johngalt 11y agoFormer BBS sysop here. No idea where any of my old backups are. It has been almost 20 years. When BBS's died it was both quick and quiet. It is hard to describe. It wasnt like a retirement party where we all sat around toasting the years of door games and shareware. Then hit the power button while saying tearful goodbyes. No. It was more like you left for lunch one day and never returned. Not only you, but so did everyone else too. At the time we thought we would come back but we just didn't. No one even knew who was the last person.
- Fastidious 11y agoLet the 1980-1990 viruses resurrect! :-)
- 6502nerdface 11y agoThose viruses are now like characters in a Charles Stross novel, archived for an eternity of being resurrected by tinkerers in simulated DOS universes, briefly blossoming to spread and infect simulated SYS.COMs and COMMAND.COMs, maybe even crossing network bridges into other simulated DOS machines, only to be terminated when the simulations end, again and again.
- WalterGR 11y agoMicrosoft _is_ good about backwards compatibility...
- bbcbasic 11y agoMy first thought when I saw the post. Wouldn't touch with a bargepole. But others... enjoy!
- userbinator 11y agoViruses back then were more of an annoying nuisance than a big threat to privacy/security... compared to malware today which is almost certainly for commercial gains of some sort.
- WalterGR 11y agoWithin the past few days, someone commented with a link to "Floppy Disks: It's Too Late" (2011) from Jason Scott's blog. Here's an excerpt: It’s over. You waited too long. You procrastinated or made excuses or otherwise didn’t think about it or care. You didn’t do anything and it’s too late now. ... If you still have boxes of floppies sitting in your attic or basement or grandparents’ place or wherever else, I’m telling you the days of it being a semi- dependable storehouse are over. It’s been too long, too much, and you’ve asked too much of what the floppies were ever designed to do. http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/3191 That's for 5 1/4" disks. The situation sounds more hopeful for 3 1/2" disks - but if you still have some, now is the time to get that data off.
- rasz_pl 11y agopeople: http://studioforcreativeinquiry.org/events/warhol-discovery http://studioforcreativeinquiry.org/events/warhol-discovery interface: http://www.kryoflux.com/ http://www.kryoflux.com/ software: http://www.softpres.org/kryoflux:ui:stream-plot http://www.softpres.org/kryoflux:ui:stream-plot tldr: hardware interface samples FDD head at 25MHz, this allows for more relaxed timings and human assisted interpretation of MFM encoding on degraded media ps: and if you still have trouble recovering with this hardware there is even more hardcore mod that adds Microstepping head motor controller, cant find the link at the moment :/
- Hobotron1 11y agoI fished out my USB 3 1/2" floppy drive... it still works. I've also got a box of old floppies. Guess I know what I'm doing this weekend!
- apaprocki 11y agoI have a pretty large collection of Commodore floppies and possibly even cassettes as well as floppies with early PC stuff. The only method I know of to get data off the Commodore stuff is with an expensive analog reader only made by one or two niche places. Are there any other options? edit: I guess to answer my own question, I just found out about ZoomFloppy. This thing seems pretty cheap and works specifically for Commodore disks. The other devices I was looking at were for any analog floppy interface... http://www.go4retro.com/products/zoomfloppy/ http://www.go4retro.com/products/zoomfloppy/
- elwell 11y agoWonder if it has this gem from my childhood: http://www.myabandonware.com/media/screenshots/w/wall-pipe-2ep/wall-pipe_3.png http://www.myabandonware.com/media/screenshots/w/wall-pipe-2...
- pasbesoin 11y ago.arc... Vague recollection of CP/M context? Depending upon age of content, you might want to look for one of the DOS-based CP/M emulators in there. I recall one called... Nice22, I think. There were others. -- Quick search turned this up: CP/M Frequently Asked Questions: Q20: How do you unpack a .ARK or .ARC file? http://www.gaby.de/faq.htm#20 http://www.gaby.de/faq.htm#20
- WalterGR 11y ago.ARC was used on MS-DOS systems as well. (Though if the format was ever popular there, it was rare by the time I was old enough to remember.) Phil Katz of PKZIP fame wrote PKARC and PKXARC - both for MS-DOS. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARC_%28file_format%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARC_%28file_format%29
- roghummal 11y agoThis is awesome! Check out ./SOUR/LINUX1.ZIP for Linux 0.12, hah.
- th0ma5 11y agoI had a bunch of IBM Big Blue Disks, and now I can only find a couple on shady sites. Someone must have more because all of the Alfredo animation demos are on YouTube. Perhaps I should send them a message. I got ahold of the current owners of Softdisk but they didn't have an archive. Oh well... Perhaps some things are just meant to be lost. Maybe any IBM people can nose around corporate archives?
- voltagex_ 11y agohttps://archive.org/download/frostbyte_1980s_DOS_collection/frostbyte_1980s_DOS_collection_archive.torrent https://archive.org/download/frostbyte_1980s_DOS_collection/... https://archive.org/download/frostbyte_1980s_DOS_collection/frostbyte_1980s_DOS_collection_archive.zip https://archive.org/download/frostbyte_1980s_DOS_collection/...
- 51Cards 11y agoHere is the biggest retro moment for me already from this archive... http://imgur.com/qyFVUid http://imgur.com/qyFVUid I still remember the sound of my 2400baud modem disconnecting from call waiting. I had a large collection of half complete images.
- eltoozero 11y agoAnother modern and Linux friendly option that reads floppies like floppies and not like seemingly random bits of magnetism vaguely resembling data. http://www.deviceside.com/fc5025.html http://www.deviceside.com/fc5025.html