Does anyone still exclusively use real media?

[Mazzspeed]

13 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

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

I want to try cleaning the disks, need to find a 5.25" drive that I can rig up to spin the disk while I clean it through the window. It can't be thermal as it only happens on my older collection that (I admit) wasn't exactly stored well for many years. Newer media mostly works fine and both drives exhibit the same issue, and one of them has an external PSU.

 

I don't really use older media, but I would like to see what's on those disks for old time's sake and back them up to modern media. One of these days I'll get around to it.

 

EDIT: My old Amiga 3.5" disks 'squeak', you should heat it! Painful.

Edited March 12, 2021 by Mazzspeed

[_The Doctor__]

I hear it, it's nails on a chalk board. I gently stress the hard case and use a ever so damp lube around the metal spindle after a breath moisture and q tip cleaning... yes it's tedious but it works, I still have a 3.5 inch disk head cleaning kit. The squeal and screech is often binding of the disk near the gunky head or binding of the disk near the spindle hub cap... so you can give that a try. If it's just the mech.. a long needle precision luber can get to bearing under the direct drive magnet. only 1 drop is needed there.. run the drive so gravity can pull it in.

[Mazzspeed]

5 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

I hear it, it's nails on a chalk board. I gently stress the hard case and use a ever so damp lube around the metal spindle after a breath moisture and q tip cleaning... yes it's tedious but it works, I still have a 3.5 inch disk head cleaning kit. The squeal and screech is often binding of the disk near the gunky head or binding of the disk near the spindle hub cap... so you can give that a try. If it's just the mech.. a long needle precision luber can get to bearing under the direct drive magnet. only 1 drop is needed there.. run the drive so gravity can pull it in.

I really need to get off my lazy ass and do this. But not until after my 600XL arrives and I fill it with goodies!

[+bob1200xl]

7 hours ago, 1200XL M.U.L.E. said:

@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.

I wrote a BASIC program to print labels on a dot-matrix, which works OK except for adding/deleting files and such. You can only change the label so many times. I have started printing the directory on a laser printer using 3x5 cards. Easier to change, slide it in the sleeve. (only works for 5.25s, of course)

 

If you look to the right of my monitor you will see the 'active' disks in a flip'n file. 50 or 60 of them. These are what I use 95% of the time. Handwritten labels. I know pretty much what is in there and I can flip thru them in just a few minutes.

 

You can also see my APE laptop under the disks. That's how I get .ATRs into my Atari.

 

I don't have any good way to catalog my disks. When I was doing a CF card interface, I came pretty close, but no cigar...

 

I got my granddaughter to sort a bunch of commercial disks by company - that helps.

 

Bob

 

[+bob1200xl]

4 hours 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...

Would you send a few of your problem disks to me so I can look at them?

 

Bob

 

[SS]

I keep being tempted about getting a second 1050  but always talk myself out of it because these days I so rarely use the one that I already own.  I do fire it up occasionally for the truly nostalgic feel of using real floppy disks but more than 90% of the time I am using digital media these days.  Lord knows, I have certainly spent enough on those multiple modern devices of mine, so I had better be trying to get my money's worth out of them!

[Mazzspeed]

2 hours ago, bob1200xl said:

Would you send a few of your problem disks to me so I can look at them?

 

Bob

 

They're not Atari disks Bob...

 

Commodore 64 disks. I actually refuse to use them until I manage to clean at least one and see how it goes, because without a doubt it's the media causing the issue and it can't be good for the drives.

[Sugarland]

I only use media that was written before July '84 because.... Well that's when Atari died.

[Mclaneinc]

4 hours ago, Sugarland said:

I only use media that was written before July '84 because.... Well that's when Atari died.

LOL....As good a reason as any....

[Gunstar]

5 hours ago, Sugarland said:

I only use media that was written before July '84 because.... Well that's when Atari died.

I do believe that's about the same time the band Van Halen died as well if you look at it that way, then also, Atari died when Nolan left, not in '84.

Edited March 13, 2021 by Gunstar

[Sugarland]

4 hours ago, Gunstar said:

I do believe that's about the same time the band Van Halen died as well if you look at it that way, then also, Atari died when Nolan left, not in '84.

True '78 but then even the 400/800's didn't even exist so that's a no go zone.

 

Edited March 13, 2021 by Sugarland

[_The Doctor__]

you sure about that, 800 ideas and some prototyping maybe....

[Sugarland]

6 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

you sure about that, 800 ideas and some prototyping maybe....

Very true but no disk drive?

[Gunstar]

1 hour ago, Sugarland said:

True '78 but then even the 400/800's didn't even exist so that's a no go zone.

 

I feel like the souls of Atari and Commodore swapped company bodies in '84/85 when Jay Miner's Amiga went to Commodore and Tramiel and the engineers he brought with him were the soul of Commodore coming to Atari with the ST line. But if it weren't for Jack's continuance of the A8 in the XE, I never would have bought an Atari 8-bit and would have missed out on the Atari legend altogether, and never would have eventually aquired the older, better quality machines in the 800 and 1200XL that I love and use to this day. So I'm glad Jack kept the 8-bit line on life-support long enough for me to discover the brilliance of Atari 8-bits when all I was interested in the time was the cheapest 6502, 128K computer I could get. The 130XE fit the bill and my computing life and life in general was changed forever. So as much as I came to hate the Tramiels and Atari Corp., I still owe my life-long love-affair and hobby to them. I knew of the 400/800 years before, but the price was to high for me, as with all others at the time, except the Timex/Sinclair 1000 I started with. And I really never knew of the XL line until I went to by my 130XE. I was saving up for either a Commodore 128 or an Apple IIc at the time.

Edited March 13, 2021 by Gunstar

[Sugarland]

24 minutes ago, Gunstar said:

I feel like the souls of Atari and Commodore swapped company bodies in '84/85 when Jay Miner's Amiga went to Commodore and Tramiel and the engineers he brought with him were the soul of Commodore coming to Atari with the ST line. But if it weren't for Jack's continuance of the A8 in the XE, I never would have bought an Atari 8-bit and would have missed out on the Atari legend altogether, and never would have eventually aquired the older, better quality machines in the 800 and 1200XL that I love and use to this day. So I'm glad Jack kept the 8-bit line on life-support long enough for me to discover the brilliance of Atari 8-bits when all I was interested in the time was the cheapest 6502, 128K computer I could get. The 130XE fit the bill and my computing life and life in general was changed forever. So as much as I came to hate the Tramiels and Atari Corp., I still owe my life-long love-affair and hobby to them.

Yes in retrospect the A8's Tramiel era was longer even than was the Warner era! 7+ years vs 4+. I think in '85 they sold more XE's than ST's in the USA by a wide margin.

 

[Sugarland]

51 minutes ago, Gunstar said:

I feel like the souls of Atari and Commodore swapped company bodies in '84/85 when Jay Miner's Amiga went to Commodore and Tramiel and the engineers he brought with him were the soul of Commodore coming to Atari with the ST line. But if it weren't for Jack's continuance of the A8 in the XE, I never would have bought an Atari 8-bit and would have missed out on the Atari legend altogether, and never would have eventually aquired the older, better quality machines in the 800 and 1200XL that I love and use to this day. So I'm glad Jack kept the 8-bit line on life-support long enough for me to discover the brilliance of Atari 8-bits when all I was interested in the time was the cheapest 6502, 128K computer I could get. The 130XE fit the bill and my computing life and life in general was changed forever. So as much as I came to hate the Tramiels and Atari Corp., I still owe my life-long love-affair and hobby to them. I knew of the 400/800 years before, but the price was to high for me, as with all others at the time, except the Timex/Sinclair 1000 I started with. And I really never knew of the XL line until I went to by my 130XE. I was saving up for either a Commodore 128 or an Apple IIc at the time.

 

I do enjoy your story of how you discovered the platform!

 

[1200XL M.U.L.E.]

Thought I would show how I my floppies are labeled by my typewriter. This is one of my game disks.

 

 

I also have a spreadsheet tracking these titles.

 

Each disk is backed up to an ATR file on my PC just in case.

[Gunstar]

28 minutes ago, 1200XL M.U.L.E. said:

Thought I would show how I my floppies are labeled by my typewriter. This is one of my game disks.

 

 

I also have a spreadsheet tracking these titles.

 

Each disk is backed up to an ATR file on my PC just in case.

Well, now I have to ask, as I've never seen it before. Can you or someone point me to an archive site that has "Donkey Kong (Hi Res)?"

[1200XL M.U.L.E.]

1 hour ago, Gunstar said:

Well, now I have to ask, as I've never seen it before. Can you or someone point me to an archive site that has "Donkey Kong (Hi Res)?"

@Gunstar I don't remember where I downloaded it from but probably either TOSEC or Pigwa. Here is a ZIP file of the ATR of the disk, renamed *.zi0, for you to explore. The file name is DKHIGH.XEX. Enjoy!

Games Disk 0002 (DS DD).zi0

[eegad]

Usually use an sdrive-max these days. Also have several maxflash carts with games.  But I do like to hook up a 1050 once in a while and play some games off of actual disks. It's partly the nostalgia of hearing the actual disk access noises,  and partly wanting to give the drives a little bit of use to see that they're still working properly.  Still kinda surprised that after 35+ years all 4 drives still work, as do 99% of the disks. 

[archeocomp]

13 hours ago, 1200XL M.U.L.E. said:

Thought I would show how I my floppies are labeled by my typewriter.

Real media with labels made on real typewriter!!

[Mclaneinc]

Its nice there's still great love for the old disks still, as eegad said, its all part of the nostalgia and while it might be in the realms of rose tinted glasses in a way it still DOES feel so right to slip the disk in and hear all the usual noises. The sound of a Happy warp speed copy still brings a smile to my face, probably as much as it did then. If nothing else I hope the thread gives people the urge to get a drive out and load up some stuff.

[+Larry]

14 hours ago, 1200XL M.U.L.E. said:

Thought I would show how I my floppies are labeled by my typewriter. This is one of my game disks.

 

 

I also have a spreadsheet tracking these titles.

 

Each disk is backed up to an ATR file on my PC just in case.

Must be a labor of love -- that's got to take some time.  I mostly keep originals on disks.  But a few backups are, and some 3-1/2 disks that I still have stored. The one thing I'd  add about labeling is that Brother P Touch laminated labels make durable, quality labels. And with the labeler attached  to a PC, it makes a powerful system.

[mikesk8]

Back in 8bit era I was using only tapes (on both Atari and ZX Spectrum; it was the main common source in my area). When I started my retro journey few years ago I was trying to repeat this approach, but after two days of fighting I bought SIO2SD  However, just recently I wanted to show my sons the concept of cassettes and bought few new tape games and tape player again. I guess if I had still my old tapes I would be using them (with turbo of course) more often. Now, the original media is more for showcasing than a daily driver