RE: [Utah-astronomy] Re: Dead computer
Patrick - do I understand that you have an old 5-1/4" floppy disk drive? I need to copy an old CAD file (remember my homemade planisphere?) which was stored on a 5-1/4" disk. Can you help? -----Original Message----- From: Patrick Wiggins [mailto:paw@trilobyte.net] Sent: Friday, January 17, 2003 12:46 PM To: utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Re: Dead computer Chuck's tale of woe brings to mind a thread that ran here a few months ago about maintaining access to old files. Most agreed the only way to do it is to take the time to convert old files to new formats so current computers can access them. So, several nights ago I thought I'd give it a try. I had no idea how many old files I had. The set up I used to do this looks a bit odd. At one end of the line is my original 1984 Mac Plus (still chugging away, btw), at the other my brand new G4. In between a G3 and another Mac I don't remember the name of. I can only thank Steve Jobs for using software that will run the basically same software on all of those machines (are you listening Bill Gates?). So, after some 30+ hours of switching floppies (remember floppies?) and ZIP disks and I'm about done. Nearly 20 years of journals, letters, financial records and some stuff I have no idea why I converted and everything is current and ready to be archived on CD. Whew! Patrick Chuck Hards wrote:
Everyone, my home computer died a horrible, noisy death last night as the bearings on my hard-drive seized up.
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Kim, My guess is no, as it sounds like Patrick is a die-hard Macintosh guy, and as far as I know they never used those drives. I have an old 5.25 drive I can loan you if need be (check your bios setup to see if your PC is old enough to still include such a drive; if so, you make it your "B" drive and that's usually all it takes). If not, I can probably find an old machine at work that I can throw it in temporarily. -Rich --- Kim Hyatt <khyatt@smithlayton.com> wrote:
Patrick - do I understand that you have an old 5-1/4" floppy disk drive? I need to copy an old CAD file (remember my homemade planisphere?) which was stored on a 5-1/4" disk. Can you help?
-----Original Message----- From: Patrick Wiggins [mailto:paw@trilobyte.net] Sent: Friday, January 17, 2003 12:46 PM To: utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Re: Dead computer
Chuck's tale of woe brings to mind a thread that ran here a few months ago about maintaining access to old files. Most agreed the only way to do it is to take the time to convert old files to new formats so current computers can access them.
So, several nights ago I thought I'd give it a try. I had no idea how many old files I had.
The set up I used to do this looks a bit odd. At one end of the line is my original 1984 Mac Plus (still chugging away, btw), at the other my brand new G4. In between a G3 and another Mac I don't remember the name of.
I can only thank Steve Jobs for using software that will run the basically same software on all of those machines (are you listening Bill Gates?).
So, after some 30+ hours of switching floppies (remember floppies?) and ZIP disks and I'm about done. Nearly 20 years of journals, letters, financial records and some stuff I have no idea why I converted and everything is current and ready to be archived on CD.
Whew!
Patrick
Chuck Hards wrote:
Everyone, my home computer died a horrible, noisy death last night as the bearings on my hard-drive seized up.
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Kim, Rich is right. By floppies I was referring to the 90 mm disks in hard plastic cases. Rich, I do have some of the old flexible floppies left over from my first computer, an Atari 800. Do you think the machine you are talking about might be able to read those files and transfer them to a more modern media? Patrick Richard Tenney wrote:
Kim,
My guess is no, as it sounds like Patrick is a die-hard Macintosh guy, and as far as I know they never used those drives. I have an old 5.25 drive I can loan you if need be (check your bios setup to see if your PC is old enough to still include such a drive; if so, you make it your "B" drive and that's usually all it takes). If not, I can probably find an old machine at work that I can throw it in temporarily..
Patrick, Possibly; I was able to recover data from an old Kaypro that used the hard-sectored 5.25-inch disks using a software emulation package I found on the web. Problem is, my old computer died that I used that drive in. My current one won't work, but as I said I may be able to try an old machine at work if I can find a few minutes. Rich --- Patrick Wiggins <paw@trilobyte.net> wrote:
Kim,
Rich is right. By floppies I was referring to the 90 mm disks in hard plastic cases.
Rich,
I do have some of the old flexible floppies left over from my first computer, an Atari 800. Do you think the machine you are talking about might be able to read those files and transfer them to a more modern media?
Patrick
Richard Tenney wrote:
Kim,
My guess is no, as it sounds like Patrick is a die-hard Macintosh guy, and as far as I know they never used those drives. I have an old 5.25 drive
I
can loan you if need be (check your bios setup to see if your PC is old enough to still include such a drive; if so, you make it your "B" drive and that's usually all it takes). If not, I can probably find an old machine at work that I can throw it in temporarily..
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participants (3)
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Kim Hyatt -
Patrick Wiggins -
Richard Tenney