Mclaneinc Posted March 12, 2021 Share Posted March 12, 2021 No digital stuff at all except maybe to use to make a real disk from... Just wondered how deep the purist thought level is. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to use real media but I think we are pushing out luck with real media unless there's a factory somewhere making new media? I don't think its wrong to want to use real media but are there any folks who do only just that...( I think you are brave and a true Atarian but also a risk taker ) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+videofx Posted March 12, 2021 Share Posted March 12, 2021 I only use floppies and copy from drive to drive except if there is a disk I don't have then I download .XEX or .ATR and put it on my drive max Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TGB1718 Posted March 12, 2021 Share Posted March 12, 2021 Only occasionally when looking for something on my old disks that I've not managed to make digital copies of. 99% of the time, S-Drive, Side2 Side3 Incognito Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faicuai Posted March 12, 2021 Share Posted March 12, 2021 (edited) 54 minutes ago, Mclaneinc said: No digital stuff at all except maybe to use to make a real disk from... Just wondered how deep the purist thought level is. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to use real media but I think we are pushing out luck with real media unless there's a factory somewhere making new media? I don't think its wrong to want to use real media but are there any folks who do only just that...( I think you are brave and a true Atarian but also a risk taker ) Of course, mostly for botting CP/M on the Indus/GTs, as well as reading those special, worth-collecting productivity or rare-to-find titles, (and backing them up when purchased). However, NOT as daily drivers, though. Incognito/HD, SDrive Nuxx and RespeQt are the main vehicles, like almost all the time. Edited March 12, 2021 by Faicuai Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted March 12, 2021 Share Posted March 12, 2021 I still love floppy disks... nostalgia factor of the physical mechanical system and moving parts... but only after everything is backed up and archived to ATR's so I can write images back out from those backups when bad sectors strike! The disk drives are their own little computers as well, and the large variety of 1st and 3rd party drives and upgrades has made that an interesting parallel in the Atari 8-bit historical sense. Also all the ingenuitive analog copy protection techniques, and the enlightening efforts made to document them, and use that knowledge to further the peripheral emulation front. PS: initially from the subject I thought you were talking about RealMedia / RealAudio / RealPlayer web streaming audio/video from the 90's haha. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zarxx Posted March 12, 2021 Share Posted March 12, 2021 Nearly always disks. After checking all my spare disks for errors and then de-labelling what was left. I found myself with 700+ good blanks. So working on transferring stuff over currently, starting with the protected originals. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted March 12, 2021 Author Share Posted March 12, 2021 Nice to see the real floppies still get use although I do worry about them, I certainly not play real games off them these days, would only be an image. Because of my setup I'm pretty much image only, I have some blank floppies (about 30) but in truth I'm done with all the copying and files, pure booting games and demo's only.. I of course hope those with real floppies keep safe and sound and do the very core of IT, backup, backup, backup! My tutor almost screamed it at us daily... 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted March 12, 2021 Share Posted March 12, 2021 (edited) Exclusively, no. But I'd say I still use not only real floppies, but tapes as well (with turbo-upgraded 1010) about 80% of the time, like Nezgar said, it's the nostalgia factor as I've always loved to use hardware and as much variety of hardware as I can muster. I have 3 real drives and 1 cassette for BOTH my daily driver computers that get used equally, set up for different stuff. So that's 6 floppy drives and 2 cassette drives total. New cassettes are still manufactured for sure, I order direct from the manufacturer(s); there's a cassette resurgence these days just like other vintage media like LP's. So far I haven't had an issue getting new floppy disks either, though I've really no idea if they are new manufacture or NOS, I suspect the latter, as not all disks I buy work, but most work fine (generic floppies, which is why I don't know if they are new or not, but not used). My last purchase of floppies was about a year ago, I got 20 floppies and one or two of them didn't format as I recall, or one side did, but not the other (I always make them into "flippies" for the full 180-360K per disk). I've also got about 100 old floppies not yet gone through to see if they are good, but the last hundred I did go through about 75% were still good on at least one side. Of course all my real drives except the 410 are upgraded with Happy or Indus sram upgrades or Rambit/T2K for the 1010, for maximum speed and capacity. I have very few original commercial disks left though, but that's because most were lost in a move back in the 90's. I do have about a dozen original release games that I've started collecting again from eBay and elsewhere too, both good used and NOS for my collection. Most of my floppies are .ATR's written back to floppies with 10502PC and Prosystem (part of APE software on the PC). I have started a decent collection of original cassettes though, mostly English ones for collecting, but I do still plan to buy quite a few from @Duddie and Retronics, as well as a few of their real floppy releases too. Of course I'm an avid user of SDX, but when I use it, it's 99% CF/SD APT partitions. However I do still use a boot floppy on D1: for my SDX config.sys so I don't have to re-flash my SDX's and have several different boot disks for different configurations I use for different stuff. I do have MyIDE II, Incognito Side, Fujinet SD, The!Cart and SDrive-max's I use the other 20% of the time, Because I do love new hardware for my 8-bits almost as much as legacy hardware. I just love using all kinds of new and old hardware tech. And it goes beyond the 8-bits into consoles, and audio/video equipment too, new and old. Edited March 12, 2021 by Gunstar 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted March 12, 2021 Share Posted March 12, 2021 I have 2 1050s, an Indus GT with RamCharger, and an XF551. The Indus is always hooked up so I can use CP/M. I always wait for my ABBUC magazine and disk to try the new stuff. Other than that though, the only reason I keep the floppy drives is in case I run across a collection of disks, I can archive them. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zarxx Posted March 12, 2021 Share Posted March 12, 2021 I'll add that although I binned many 5 1/4" disks for being bad/noisy etc. It was nothing near the level of bad 3 1/2" SD disks I sorted through too - like 90% bad. I read somewhere that the magnetic media is apparently different between the two. HD disks did seem to fair better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted March 12, 2021 Share Posted March 12, 2021 (edited) @Stephen Me too, CP/M and ABBUC on real floppies! Edited March 12, 2021 by Gunstar 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted March 12, 2021 Author Share Posted March 12, 2021 That's a nice thought there Stephen, always a chance of something rare.. Real world wise I have a Happy (thank you cwc for the happy mod) anda standard 1050 plus an 810 and a 410 (that I recently acquired for free, my mate had it sitting in a drawer and just said "do you want it"). I've not turned them on in ages but do maintain them. Even the poor old SD-Max gets little use with the AVG in da house... But I really think its great that folk use the old disks, its part of the 'experience'...Just be careful tho... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted March 12, 2021 Share Posted March 12, 2021 So far though, no respondents use real media "exclusively" though... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+bob1200xl Posted March 12, 2021 Share Posted March 12, 2021 I use real media exclusively. I am playing around with some SIO2SD projects, but I don't use them for real storage. I back up my files to real media. I haven't had any bad media with the exception of a small number of commercial disks that arrived in my inventory with badness already in them. 5.25s and 3.5s above my monitor. Bob 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1200XL M.U.L.E. Posted March 12, 2021 Share Posted March 12, 2021 I try to use real media as much as possible. In my case, it's floppy disks. I have a collection of disk images and executables (in some format) on a small PC running APE. After a quick-and-dirty vetting of a program I will transfer it to a floppy disk. Then I file away the source file in my PC so I can I always recover it should a floppy fail. After that I run from my floppies. I could switch over to APE exclusively but then I end up moving too much between my PC and my Atari. It kind of dilutes the experience. Floppy disks also feel right to me, kind of like brushing your teeth with your favorite toothpaste. Your experiences and desires may vary. Thankfully, the world is still awash in floppy disks. Some are still sealed in their boxes and others can be found in lots. I simply set my maximum to $1 each new or $0.20 - $0.30 each used. Just be patient on eBay. The deals pop up. I fully understand these floppy disks and their drives have expiration dates. One day the disk will fail and one day the drive will go ka-put. Then I will switch over to some sort of virtualized media system and simply transfer my backups and archives to it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1200XL M.U.L.E. Posted March 12, 2021 Share Posted March 12, 2021 @bob1200xl Your collection is beautifully organized! Well done! How do you manage labeling your disks? My handwriting is pretty rough so I actually use a typewriter on the label. Yes, I type first on the label and then apply the label on the floppy .. not apply the label and then feed the floppy disk into the typewriter. ? I am also curious to know if you have any sort of cataloging and inventory system or do you just know what's where? In the past I have used Excel spreadsheets but I am moving over to Syn-Calc to keep it all inside the Atari ecosystem. 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark2008 Posted March 12, 2021 Share Posted March 12, 2021 I kind of consider an SD card/compact flash to be real media. That's how I solve the problem - delusion, haha, j/k. But my preferred atari is with a hard drive/floppy drive setup. I don't like to tether my Atari to my Mac, but the one thing my Mac has to do, right now, is this - write messages on AtariAge. I was never able to get an 8-bit hard drive, whether supra, or mio with hard drive, or a pbi to ide solution. What I settled on is my 1200xl uses a side2 cart with compact flash. The D3 partition has 32MB, and that's all that device does, it presents the D3 drive as my permanently attached hard drive. My 130XE's "hard drive" is a sio2d. It's main purpose is also to present a large D3 image. But I do also use it to copy stuff, from Mac to Atari...so it is a way of getting something between worlds via an atr image. I currently have 3 floppy drives, but mostly only use the 1050. I will sometime receive my first abbuc mailing, so that'll be an old fashioned software distribution. And I have used the 1050 at times to load config.sys. I have an XF551 and Indust GT w/supercharger, but I've stopped using both. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted March 12, 2021 Share Posted March 12, 2021 (edited) 2 hours ago, bob1200xl said: I use real media exclusively. I am playing around with some SIO2SD projects, but I don't use them for real storage. I back up my files to real media. I haven't had any bad media with the exception of a small number of commercial disks that arrived in my inventory with badness already in them. 5.25s and 3.5s above my monitor. Bob @bob1200xl Wow!!! that monitor isn't damaging data? amazing.... @Mclaneinc I used exclusively real media all the way along... I've had hard drives and other storage mediums forever and they are real media. So are you saying a corvus, s-100 based atrs, supra, MIO, BB, s-100 based rom sims, and the like aren't real media? I am unclear... current 'super carts' are just those things run on a smaller computer and doing what we've been doing since those days of old. Is the real media delineation about storage device or emulation of a storage device? Mind you this is all in a friendly voice, it's my lack of proper tone... 'Purists' meaning only what was available when? Are we saying paper tape and 8 inch drives? Atari computers had these... are we saying xf551... are we saying spinning media? or rom or persistant ram.... I don't know where the line is to be drawn... maybe at SD cards? I mean the 8 bit used laserdiscs at one point or another being a controller and gen locking over them... so laserdisc ok but DVD maybe no.... We really do need to figure on the cut off points. I can no longer be a real media purist I'd guess because, ultimate cart, avg cart, sd max, sio2sd, myIDE, etc are used now... I use them for play testing of new software including all of the old equipment and hard drives. I wouldn't be doing a good job testing stuff if it fails with MIO,BB, or any of that other stuff can I? I can say some of the machines have never tasted of stuff made after 2005 though... Would they be pure/virginistic machines? Do I qualify as both a purist and a non purist? Edited March 12, 2021 by _The Doctor__ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gilsaluki Posted March 12, 2021 Share Posted March 12, 2021 Funny, I have asked the same question in the past. I ONLY use real media (disks, tapes, and carts). I still use film and film cameras as well. Only have a flip phone (minimum services for $5/mo). Have all my vinyl from high school (cassettes and 8-tracks as well). Yes, I have something to play them on, and do. Not a purist, they just suit my needs. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gilsaluki Posted March 12, 2021 Share Posted March 12, 2021 4 hours ago, bob1200xl said: I use real media exclusively. I am playing around with some SIO2SD projects, but I don't use them for real storage. I back up my files to real media. I haven't had any bad media with the exception of a small number of commercial disks that arrived in my inventory with badness already in them. 5.25s and 3.5s above my monitor. Bob Love that set up. I ONLY use real media as well. Yes, I have purchased it all through the ages. I have just about all the Atari 8 software. Some I need to ditch cause they suck backwater (terribly programmed games and utilities). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mazzspeed Posted March 12, 2021 Share Posted March 12, 2021 I'd like to use real media more, but floppies are becoming rare making 'new' ones hard to find, and I'm finding that even the new floppies degrade quickly and become unreliable. All the floppies I had as a kid are essentially useless, every time I try to read them the FDD stops reading anything for about an hour - After which time the drive works fine again. Happens on both of the drives I have here and cleaning the heads does nothing to resolve the issue. The only fix is to wait it out... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted March 12, 2021 Share Posted March 12, 2021 21 minutes ago, Mazzspeed said: I'd like to use real media more, but floppies are becoming rare making 'new' ones hard to find, and I'm finding that even the new floppies degrade quickly and become unreliable. All the floppies I had as a kid are essentially useless, every time I try to read them the FDD stops reading anything for about an hour - After which time the drive works fine again. Happens on both of the drives I have here and cleaning the heads does nothing to resolve the issue. The only fix is to wait it out... That's odd. Some recent posts here make me think that maybe you should change all the caps in the both drives and your computers 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mazzspeed Posted March 12, 2021 Share Posted March 12, 2021 4 minutes ago, Stephen said: That's odd. Some recent posts here make me think that maybe you should change all the caps in the both drives and your computers It's not the caps. The media magnetizes the heads for some reason. They look perfectly clean and cleaning them does nothing. Use newer media and the drives work fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted March 12, 2021 Share Posted March 12, 2021 (edited) You may have a ferrous dust problem, clean all over, not just the heads. Although if all disks including new ones fail after and hour... you may have a thermal issue. Normally that's a problem with chips, transistors, that sort of thing even regulators... not caps. he he he no cappy.... sometimes it's as easy as bringing head amp or write circuit in spec with a twist of a screw driver and a scope. Fun stuff... static is no joke, nor is magnetic induction. Amazing stuff. Careful vacuuming and cleaning of disks might be in order... disk jackets that full or degraded is not cool though. clean out the dust jackets as well. Don't feed disk drive toner from laser printers either! ? lol Edited March 12, 2021 by _The Doctor__ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+gnusto Posted March 12, 2021 Share Posted March 12, 2021 I realized the other day I've had my 1050 disconnected for a couple of months. So that probably answers THAT question. My CFcard and SIDEs get used a lot though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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