I was testing some 30+ years old Apple floppies

[Keatah]

I was testing some 30+ years old Apple II floppies.. And all of them work perfectly. I went though 900 disks today to test them for integrity and they all verified ok. I'm gonna guess the other 2700 will pass too.

 

Absolutely stellar I tell you. That and my 28 year old Sider 10megger hard disk tested fine too! And all my hi-res pictures from back in the day are present and accounted for. About 8 disks worth, more or less. Totally kick ass! And all my BBS software, is all good! Tele-Cat, Apple-Net, Networks 2.0, Ascii Express (AE), GBBS.. Shit, all the stuff in my personal collection is golden..

Edited January 21, 2012 by Keatah

[Ransom]

Well, now you've done it. They'll all stop working tomorrow.

 

Actually, though, I've been very impressed by how long floppies last. In 1990, I bought hundreds of generic floppies and copied a friend's entire A8 collection to them. Those floppies still work perfectly today, more than 20 years later. I also just purchased a used copy of Wizardry for the Apple II. All of its floppies also worked perfectly.

 

I'm not saying floppies never go bad. But it would appear that they are tougher than we were lead to believe.

[BydoEmpire]

Almost all of my Apple 2 disks work, but I'd say 80% of my c64 disks are unreadable now. Not sure why that is, although I suspect it's due to my c64 disks having a lot more stuff copied onto them, then erased, then copy protection banging them around.

[Keatah]

Didn't the c64 disks have a higher density? And weren't the drives much more mechanically involved (somehow)? I do know the timing marks were more complex, smaller, and more "exactly" written. There was little tolerance. I recall my c64 disks back in the day, they always seemed to go bad and I never trusted any data to them. I didn't like the head banging back and forth like it does in the 1541.

 

Copy protection just made it worse. The mechanics and logic of the drive were never intended to operate under "copy protection". And by using copy protection we just ask for failure years later. The tolerances are pushed right to the breaking limit, both electronically and mechanically. IMHO, back in the day, it was great justification to get something "Cracked" and "de-protected", really, for posterity's sake.

 

Whereas with the Apple 2 series Disk ][ drive, there's a lot less density going on. 143K bytes as opposed to 161K bytes. This allows for larger bits and longer lasting bits to be written. That's one reason.

 

The most common issue with the 1541 was the head banging against the stopper and the stepper motor's axle would slip inside the center of the actuator. Copy protection made this even worse, and actually caused failure here.

 

The Disk ][ would do something like that too, but, when doing so, there was a strain relief if the head couldn't move, and its guide-pin would pop out of the phonograph-like circular disc shaped guide-track. (I should do a video for you). And a quick PR#6 command would reboot and reset that guide pin. This could go on forever till the mechanics wore out. My Disk ][ drives are from the first production run at Apple In 1978 or 1979, hand-built mostly. And they work fine today.

 

If ever there was a problem it's the speed control. But there is an adjustment for it. And you don't need a special alignment disk either. In fact, a lot of times folks often turned the speed just a little slower to increase compatibility with copy protected stuff.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_1541

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_II

[magnusfalkirk]

Glad to hear all your disks Apple II are still working. Between ADTPro and the CFFA3000 I'm in the process of putting disk images back on disks, for games I want to play on my Apple IIc+. I use to have a decent size collection of original Apple II software, until my original GS died in 2003 and I was stupid enough to toss it and ALL the software. Got back into Apple II's via emulators not long after and the real hardware in Aug 0f 2006 when I got a complete //e system at an estate auction for $5! I've since gotten another GS, which I now have a CFFA3000 in.

 

Dean

Edited January 23, 2012 by magnusfalkirk

[Keatah]

Glad to hear all your disks Apple II are still working. Between ADTPro and the CFFA3000 I'm in the process of putting disk images back on disks, for games I want to play on my Apple IIc+. I use to have a decent size collection of original Apple II software, until my original GS died in 2003 and I was stupid enough to toss it and ALL the software. Got back into Apple II's via emulators not long after and the real hardware in Aug 0f 2006 when I got a complete //e system at an estate auction for $5! I've since gotten another GS, which I now have a CFFA3000 in.

 

Dean

 

Crap.. I need to go the other way. I'm going to get a nice serial cable tonight. And then perhaps a USB to RS-232 kit. I'm going to assume that ADT and a SuperSerial Card can blast through these at 115,200, supposedly using an undocumented dip-switch configuration? I suppose I need a good high-quality cable to run at 115,200, and not simple jumper wires like I have been using..

 

And this is what I'm not looking forward to at all, I have 4 more tubs just like these. And then there's a 1/2 sized box with all sorts of disks supporting hardware.

 

Edited January 23, 2012 by Keatah

[jaybird3rd]

I've still got a box full of Atari 5.25-inch floppies which are getting close to thirty years old. Some of them are copied disks that I made around 1983, while others are commercial disks. The vast majority of them still work perfectly, even the homemade "flippies", and so do my original Atari 1050 floppy drives.

 

Contrary to conventional wisdom, I've found that 5.25-inch media is much more reliable than 3.5-inch media. Even on systems which format them to a higher density than Atari's 90K, I've had exceptionally good luck with 5.25-inch diskettes. High-density 3.5-inch diskettes are horrible by comparison. I don't know whether it was because of the increased areal density, or because floppy drives cheapened to the point where they became $11 throwaway parts, or if it's the diskettes themselves that cheapened. Perhaps the increased "ruggedness" of 3.5-inch diskettes also lead people to handle them--and store them--less carefully.

[Keatah]

Well, now you've done it. They'll all stop working tomorrow.

 

Actually, though, I've been very impressed by how long floppies last. In 1990, I bought hundreds of generic floppies and copied a friend's entire A8 collection to them. Those floppies still work perfectly today, more than 20 years later. I also just purchased a used copy of Wizardry for the Apple II. All of its floppies also worked perfectly.

 

I'm not saying floppies never go bad. But it would appear that they are tougher than we were lead to believe.

 

Back in the day, I would guess folks had no idea of how long they would last. Especially in a consumer environment. But I suppose if you store them in a clean, moderately-dry, dark, quiet environment, free of major temperature fluctuations I don't see why they won't last 50 years.

 

Out of 1200 disks tested so far (all from my personal stash) 24 have failed, and I'm going to guess that 8 of these were written with a drive adjusted to a different speed or something. The other 15 original disks that are originals that *will* probably boot and operate correctly on a II+ as opposed to an Enhanced //e.

 

I just finished "cracking" a 31-year old original disk. Amazing! And now it works across the board from a II+ all the way to a //gs.

[Keatah]

I've still got a box full of Atari 5.25-inch floppies which are getting close to thirty years old. Some of them are copied disks that I made around 1983, while others are commercial disks. The vast majority of them still work perfectly, even the homemade "flippies", and so do my original Atari 1050 floppy drives.

 

Contrary to conventional wisdom, I've found that 5.25-inch media is much more reliable than 3.5-inch media. Even on systems which format them to a higher density than Atari's 90K, I've had exceptionally good luck with 5.25-inch diskettes. High-density 3.5-inch diskettes are horrible by comparison. I don't know whether it was because of the increased areal density, or because floppy drives cheapened to the point where they became $11 throwaway parts, or if it's the diskettes that cheapened. Perhaps the increased "ruggedness" of 3.5-inch diskettes also lead people to treat them less carefully.

 

It's really a mixture of these aspects.

 

I've read stories on blogs talking about how the old floppy disks are all trash today. And that you need a lot of good luck in finding a drive that is working, and how hopeless it is to count on them for long-term storage. I would tend to disagree. These blogs are written by tech neophytes that haven't got a clue.

 

Consider this: The tolerances of a 5.25 disk (and the data stucture) is pretty loose when compared to modern storage media. The areal density is remarkably low. And yet, the electronics punched-in the magnetic domains just as hard as they do today. The data bits on 5.25 floppies are like tanks. And with all the loose tolerances going on, you could get a lot of variation in the drive and still have it remain functional.

 

Regarding the unreliability of 3.5-inch disks - I have to say that the ideas and concepts advanced too far too fast. The areal density is too high also. The mechanics have been cost-cut down to almost nothing. The tolerances are too small. Too many drives built to unexacting standards. WAY WAY too many manufacturers of media and drives. Dirt can be trapped inside them. Perceived durability above that of "standard" 5.25 disks. That's a recipe for disaster.

 

I've recently thought it was a "conspiracy" to get us to move up to better and newer storage devices. But I don't think that's the case here. There really was a need to push for greater storage capacity. It's just that the manufacturing/quality was not up to handling it.

 

Just examine the construction of a Shugart assembly compared to the no-name shit that flows out Taiwan or some other sweatshop. It was brute-force and heavy metal that gave the classic computers the ability to stand the test of time. Today's computing devices, while infinitely better engineered, are built out of shit materials and cost-cut to almost non-existence.

 

Shit..man.. my Sider 10 MEGABYTE hard disk has lower density than a 3.5" 1.44MB floppy. IIRC, when I took one of them apart I think there was 4 platters in there, double sided, 5.25 in diameter more or less. So that's 8 large surfaces holding 10MEGS. And, like I said before, I am totally impressed that it powered up after 28 years and all the data was readable. Ha! And this was a drive that you had to manually park the heads. I remember typing BRUN PH. With PH being a 3 sector binary program that moved the head assembly to a dead spot on the platters. Whenever I was done with the drive I had a big red sign next to its power switch that I had to lift up in order power it down. It had a drawing of a car shaped like a dick pulling into a fluffy parking space.

Edited January 23, 2012 by Keatah

[Keatah]

There's nothing rugged at all about a 3.5 disk. I've had so many of these go bad on me. Those, and the 1.2MB 5.25" disks too. Those sucked even more!

 

I recall my first interactions with a PC and the Amiga. While the PC worked fine with the 360K per side disks, it got to be unreliable with anything higher. It was this unreliability that encouraged me to make more use of the 2 series for a personal journal and a lot of writing projects. And it was the correct decision. I just read those disks this week. I also had plenty of 3.5 disks stored alongside these Apple disks, a whole +40% of those are not readable!! Whereas with the 5.25 Apple disks they're all readable today. Crap, I remember digitizing a bunch of pictures on the Amiga (800K disk size) and just months later I had errors. Same shit with the 1.44 format on the PC. It was such a turn off. Out of anger I took the a500 and banged it so hard on the edge of the desk it exploded in a shower of parts and was partly folded. This was back in the day.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy

http://matesy.de/ind...emid=93〈=en

http://en.wikipedia....py_disk_formats

Edited January 23, 2012 by Keatah

[+FujiSkunk]

Didn't the c64 disks have a higher density? And weren't the drives much more mechanically involved (somehow)?

 

Commodore disk drives were very fragile compared to disk drives for other systems. Actually that was the reputation Commodore had for pretty much all of their hardware back in the day. As awesome as the Commodore 64 and its accessories were, DOA computers and flaky disk drives were common. Fortunately that means the hardware that's still around today has a better chance of lasting, since most of the stuff that is going to break broke a long time ago.

 

I have several good 1541's but I'm also fortunate enough to own a couple of 1571's and one 1541-II, which are more reliable than the original 1541's. I bought a good stack of disks back in the day, and I still fire them up now and then. So far only two disks have given up the ghost (one of those was my fault), and maybe one or two more miss a load now and then. All the rest, even those with funky copy-protection and fast-loading schemes, seem to be doing just fine.

 

I've also lost one Apple II disk, but I suspect that was due to an incompatibility I later read about between that company's copy protection (EA, coincidentally) and a quirk with the Apple DuoDisk drive.

[magnusfalkirk]

Glad to hear all your disks Apple II are still working. Between ADTPro and the CFFA3000 I'm in the process of putting disk images back on disks, for games I want to play on my Apple IIc+. I use to have a decent size collection of original Apple II software, until my original GS died in 2003 and I was stupid enough to toss it and ALL the software. Got back into Apple II's via emulators not long after and the real hardware in Aug 0f 2006 when I got a complete //e system at an estate auction for $5! I've since gotten another GS, which I now have a CFFA3000 in.

 

Dean

 

Crap.. I need to go the other way. I'm going to get a nice serial cable tonight. And then perhaps a USB to RS-232 kit. I'm going to assume that ADT and a SuperSerial Card can blast through these at 115,200, supposedly using an undocumented dip-switch configuration? I suppose I need a good high-quality cable to run at 115,200, and not simple jumper wires like I have been using..

 

And this is what I'm not looking forward to at all, I have 4 more tubs just like these. And then there's a 1/2 sized box with all sorts of disks supporting hardware.

 

 

If you really need 115,200 performance to transfer your disks to disk images you might want to check out ADTPro which you can get here: http://adtpro.sourceforge.net/ since you're already using ADT you can use it to transfer the ADTPro Apple II client to the Apple II and then just start the host on your PC/Mac and boot up the client on the II. Once you've got it configured for 115,200, which is simple to do, your good to go. I've been using ADTPro since about 0.20, so not long after David Schmidt released it, and every upgrade has been well worth the download. The latest version is 1.20.

 

just a suggestion.

Dean