So I found a bunch of old floppy disks this morning....

[lastlib]

plugged 'em in to Mom's computer, which still has a floppy drive....Found files from the late 90's.

Spent the rest of the morning saving files I wanted/needed to keep, and then wiping the disks so I could safely pitch 'em.

Obsolete technology bites sometimes....

Anybody have any similar experiences lately?

[ohiosmith]

1. Kinda. I have several boxes of LPs that haven't been opened since 1989. I'm considering getting a

turntable and giving them a spin.

[Chan790]

5. They make USB turntables that you can use to convert them to MP3.

Usually around $100. If you're smart, you do what my brother did and buy one, then charge other people to "rip" their LPs (to MP3s or burn to CDs) so you can turn it into a profit-making venture.

The only downside is that the record has to play and you have to listen to it play so you can make sure it doesn't skip or have weird aural-blips...so it's not like you can leave if you're ripping something you hate. Some people own some real shit: klezmer and polka were common and terrible.

[ohiosmith]

8. Went through that putting a ton of them on reel to reel in the sixties. They'll likely stay packed

as a good turntable will cost a mint.

[Kali]

17. you can pick up a regular turntable for less than a $200

go for it! vinyl is cool again!

[Baitball Blogger]

2. Dang. You talk about it like you discovered something that was two centuries old.

[Wait Wut]

3. I have my first iMac in the garage.

It has a bad power supply, but it has a ton of old photos that I no longer have hard copies of. Everything was lost in a flood a few years ago. It really isn't a "difficult" dump, but annoying and time consuming. I've got all the stuff I need to get it done, including a workaround for the bad power supply. Plus, the damned thing is a lot heavier than my brand new iMac "Albert".

It also has the only surviving copy of the report my son wrote in high school on the Constitution. It was one of the few "A"s he received.

[sharp_stick]

7. You should get it done

before you find a nest of mice enjoying the shelter

An easier workaround however may be to yank the hard drive and put that into an external enclosure. At least then you don't have to deal with that PITA power supply.

I remember trying to fix an old model iMac with a bad power supply and it was a dog.

[Wait Wut]

13. Get it done?

You mean, stop procrastinating? Ugh.

I thought about pulling the drive. My boss thinks he can get it hooked up with his external. I'm going to try my workaround, first.

The only issues I've ever had with my Macs has been with the power supply. Easy enough fix, but irritating. Haven't had that problem with my last 2, though. The older iMacs were friggin' insane to pull apart. You'd think it was a Ferrari the way they had it all neatly packed in there to "just fit".

[snooper2]

4. I found a box of old xmas lights in the attic last weekend

They are still there LOL

[HopeHoops]

6. Nah. I've got boxes of floppies an zip drives. I'll never make it through all of them.

[Denninmi]

9. Yeah, I need to dig the stone tablets out of the garage ...

... and translate from the ancient cuneiform. That's how old some of the crap around my house is.

[lastlib]

14. Hey, you speak Sumerian??!? Cool! I've got a couple rocks...

...I need 'em translated into Babylonian! I think they'll tell me how to build a warp drive out of old clocks!

[hunter]

10. I've got files from the late 'seventies.

Every time I build a new computer I transfer my old files over, including programs.

I also install emulators for all my old machines.

I can still run all my old Atari stuff from my current desktop.



I've still got an 8 inch disk drive in my garage, but I haven't started it up for years.

Nobody's asked me to convert floppies to a modern format for a long time.

[lastlib]

15. Hey!! Maybe you can tell me....

...how can I salvage all the old data off my Pickett slide rule?? That's had me scratching my head for years!

(Actually the thing still works, it's just incredibly slow and totally manual--only accurate to five places....)

[hunter]

16. Here's an Android slide rule emulator...

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.timscott.sliderule

[a2liberal]

11. A friend has an ESDI hard drive

that I've been trying to get the data off of without spending big $$$. No luck so far, those drives and controller cards have so many variable settings...

[Ron Obvious]

12. My CP/M floppies were still almost all readable

I still have about a hundred 5 1/4" floppies for my Kaypro II from 1982. These are double-density, single-sided 192 Kb floppies, many of them even had a notch cut into them with a special tool so you could flip them over and use the other side which wasn't officially supported. I bought three 5 1/4" floppy drives for a dollar each at a computer recycle shop, figuring at least one of them would still work.

Amazingly, they all worked just fine and virtually every disk, including both sides of the notched disks, were still readable. That's not even true of most of my 3.5" hard floppies that are less than half of that in age.

[bluedigger]

18. I served with a guy who had a Kaypro II in 1983.

They were so impressed they made him the company clerk, and then sent him to the West Point prep school on orders. He's probably a General now.

[OriginalGeek]

19. this has nothing to do with that

I swear.