I’ve started dumping those floppies I recovered the other day that have content in them. Where do you suggest I upload the images?
I was thinking of sticking them on my Github and just writing a script to list the content of each image in the README.md, and then those who want to make sense of what it is can have at it.
Today’s lot:
and that one:
The only few floppies that had bad sectors in all of those:
Not bad: most of those disks are over 30 years old, some 40 years old.
Tomorrow I have to process this crate:
I’m not looking forward: this is seriously OCD…
There’s a lot of Apple II disks in there too. I wonder if I can read them with the PC somehow… Otherwise I’ll have to crack out the Apple II and it’s already in storage.
The Internet Archive would be the usual place.
The problem is, I have no idea what’s on most of them. The content needs to be reviewed otherwise it’ll just disappear as unlabeled disk image with unknown content in the bowels of the internet archive.
Also, I really should make a pass on them because some of them have licensed software and serials…
Also, I really should make a pass on them because some of them have licensed software and serials…
I doubt anyone cares about copyright for software that old?
Some of the companies are still around and the serial is probably registered to my company’s name. The last thing I want is them finding the serial on the internet archive and calling my boss, even if the software is ancient.
My plan is to ask my boss whether he’s okay for me to upload all the anonymous stuff - driver and such - and to let me contact the companies in question to ask them permission to upload their old stuff with the serial. I don’t expect my boss refuse the former (he’s cool) and probably not the latter either. As for the individual software vendors, worst case, they refuse and I’ll simply post the software without the serial.
I want to do everything cleanly and above the radar. A bunch of old DOS programs aren’t worth getting in trouble for.
And just for follow up, I talked to my boss and it’s okay with it.
At any rate, it’s super-weird to be handling 5"1/4 disks in 2025. After all these years… And what’s even weirder is, both the 3"1/2 and the 5"1/4 drives in that computer I salvaged are buttery smooth, like if they were totally new. They’re probably working smoother than any actual drive I owned when drives were a thing people had to use every day 🙂 And they seem to read disks from 1989 just fine.
I don’t have much advice in whats best, I would guess Github indeed followed by review and uploading important things to internet archive.
But I wanted to just be thankfull, preserving old media is extremely usefull and without people like you who wanna do it. I wouldn’t have been able to play some old obscure games I remember from my youth. Or old software like goomaker 5.4 (it distorted images to make funny faces)
So good luck and thank you
You’re welcome 🙂
No games here though. It’s all drivers, business stuff and software for scopes and other measurement equipment.
Those can be even more rare than games.
As a sysadmin I had to find drivers for a scanner from epson from 1992 and if it wasnt for a internet archive floppy save. I wouldn’t have made it work. Our municipality uses some stone age things for the archives
Yeah I know, I’ve used other people’s disk dumps to save the day too. That’s kind of why I’m doing this.
I’m really amazed at how well they all read. I’ve only had one bad sector on a disk I have a duplicate of. Other than that, everything read perfectly. The oldest disk I dumped goes all the way back to 1985 and it read like a champ. The write protect sticker’s glue fared less well…
Oh well… 39 disks dumped. That’ll do for today. I didn’t even make a dent in the pile 🙂
