Since we mentioned that the C64 got middle age (or however you see 40 as) one might also note that the European rival the ZX Spectrum also just turned to (on the 23rd of April). While it might not have been big in America it was fairly popular over in Europe, and certainly then in the UK. More of a rival over here then all this talk about the Apple II etc.
https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/22/spectrum_at_40/
The ZX Spectrum, released on April 23, 1982, was a follow-up to Sinclair's ZX81. Referred to as the ZX82 or ZX81 Colour during development, the final product arrived with either 16KB or 48KB of RAM (depending on pocket depth) and a case designed by Rick Dickinson, who had previously worked on the ZX81 wedge. Dickinson was also responsible for the ZX Spectrum's infamous rubber keyboard.
The BASIC interpreter was stored in ROM and was written by Steve Vickers on contract from Nine Tiles. A prototype ZX Spectrum, formerly in the possession of Nine Tiles, was donated to the Centre for Computing History in 2019. The prototype lacks the Dickinson case and features full-travel keys, but the guts would go on to form the ZX Spectrum found occupying many a family television of the 1980s.
Text took the form of a 32 x 24 column display and graphics had 256 x 192 pixels to play with. Color was problematic; to conserve memory a separate 32 x 24 overlay of 8 x 8 pixels were used, with each block having a foreground and background color. While static color images could work relatively well, the approach resulted in the infamous attribute clash. Rival machines, such as the Commodore 64, did not suffer from the same problem although used a lower multicolor resolution made for blockier graphics.
The ZX Spectrum, replete with rubber keyboard, debuted at £125 for the 16KB version and £175 for the 48KB incarnation. A 32KB RAM pack could be plugged into the rear expansion slot of the former, and this writer well remembers the joy of an unexpected reset caused by a wobbly bit of hardware.
Over five million of the Z80A-based devices were sold, and its impact cannot be overstated. While over 1.5 million BBC Micros (made by Acorn) may have also been sold during its lifetime, it was the ZX Spectrum that found its way into far more homes across Europe, and its impact continues to resonate in the IT world of today.
(Score: 3, Troll) by Freeman on Monday April 25 2022, @07:48PM (19 children)
In the terms of technology, that stuff is as old as the dinosaurs. Seriously though, that is very, very old in computer terms. Anyone expecting a 40 year old floppy disk to have reasonable data retention? More like reasonable amount of data corruption. Assuming you can get said thing to even function.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday April 25 2022, @07:53PM (12 children)
As long as it has a printed label, I'd expect the data on that label to still be readable without problems. However hand-written labels may have faded, depending on the pen used to write them.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 25 2022, @08:13PM
Rather like aristarchus, then.
Roy Batty, Blade Runner [wikipedia.org]
.
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Have we had enough nostalgia, yet?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday April 25 2022, @08:27PM (3 children)
Yep, that label is likely to be readable for the next 80 years. The contents of the magnetic medium, not so much.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2022, @12:55AM (2 children)
I just archived a bunch of 5.25" disks from the 1980s. Most were readable without a problem.
A bigger problem is dust intrusion with 3.5" disks from the 1990s. I have real trouble reading those.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Tuesday April 26 2022, @03:45AM (1 child)
Try recovering 8 meg 14" removable hard disk platters in a CDC Phoenix... ;-)
Pffft... Floppy disks!
(Score: 2) by drussell on Tuesday April 26 2022, @03:56AM
No, wait... I think they're 13 megabytes...
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday April 25 2022, @08:29PM (1 child)
Some printed labels fade much quicker than pen or pencil writing. All printers are not created equal.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Monday April 25 2022, @11:23PM
The bigger problem with floppy disk labels is the adhesive penetrating the label, making it look dark and spotty. I have even seen a few weird cases where adhesive has somehow migrated to the FRONT of a label (I believe due to long term pressure against a plastic disk pocket.)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by istartedi on Monday April 25 2022, @09:23PM (4 children)
Googling around, it depends. First, "floppy disk" is a generic term. There are different sizes and densities. Next, like anything else there were good makers and bad makers having good and bad days with their equipment. Perhaps the biggest variable is how they were stored and used. Some people notched the opposite side of a discount 5.25 and flung it in to a drawer along with the stapler, in a desk next to a sunny window. Others might have well-made media that they used properly and stored in a cool, dark place.
If I had the drive both literally and metaphorically, I wouldn't give up on trying to read these things.
I still have a 20 meg hard drive from the early 90s, and I haven't drilled it yet; but at the rate I'm going I should probably just put something in my will instructing them that there's nothing worthwhile on it, and to just drill it. How does one interface an ST-225 anyway? That's all I know about it. Nothing to see there anyway but some writing from college that I'd probably think was crap now. I did *not* become a writer, LOL.
Of course nothing beats actually being diligent enough to transfer your data over to a new system. With increasing capacity there has almost always been room to put an "old data" folder on your new system and not lose the archives. I know one guy who did that going way back, and even runs old 8-bit software that he wrote in the 80s, in emulators. Would that I had kept up with such things. Oh well.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Monday April 25 2022, @09:48PM (3 children)
"Drill" a working ST-225? Really? There are plenty of collectors who would love to buy a working ST-225.
You interface with it using an "MFM" hard disk controller. And you have to low-level format it with that specific controller before you can use it.
There a some early vintage computers that can not easily be modified to run with any newer form of hard drive, so those are worth something if they work.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Monday April 25 2022, @10:31PM (1 child)
Well you had me going there for a minute but "worth something" appears to be about $40-$80 on eBay. Although I have no idea if it's actually working so I'm sure that makes a difference. The eBay listings I looked at didn't say "working" either, as I suspect that most of them are like mine--pulled from an old machine that was scrapped 25 years ago. So I'd have to interface it as you say to determine if it was working and there's certainly a cost to that. I'm still thinking that drilling it to destroy my personal data is the better option; but I'm willing to be convinced otherwise.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Monday April 25 2022, @11:12PM
Most eBay sellers these days are junk dealers, so much of their stuff is just shiny dead trash. The rest don't want to risk losing money when a buyer with more money than brains can't figure out how to even plug it in.
There had been a seller a few years back that stress tested drives, ran them through Spinrite, and included the results of the tests.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday April 26 2022, @01:18PM
Seriously, who drills them? We take them out back and shoot them. Very effective.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 25 2022, @08:13PM
Middle age = you've lived half your (expected natural) life.
2 x 40 = 80
40 is pretty much MIDDLE AGE.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 25 2022, @11:29PM
Then if you don't like it, go play with your iPhone, idiot.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Snospar on Tuesday April 26 2022, @10:56AM (1 child)
Floppy disk? What new fangled creation is this? The ZX Spectrum used mainly audio cassettes for storage and they were notoriously unreliable when new let alone a year or two later. Higher quality cassettes were better but expensive and hard to find; lower quality tapes would stretch and there was only so much "warble" the loader could cope with. Eventually there was the ZX Microdrive that used miniature endless loop cartridges - reliability was again poor but they were cheap and quick and could store around 85kB (what luxury).
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday April 26 2022, @01:25PM
Yeah, I've had my share of dealings with cassettes, they are definitely a lot easier to screw-up. Still, I've also repaired some cartridges, because the problem was the cartridge case, not the media. In the event that you're dealing with old media like a cassette, VHS, 3.5" floppy disk, 5 1/4" floppy disk, (or hopefully not) even larger format floppy or disc media, the first priority should be transferring said data to a newer medium. Assuming you're worried that it might not complete the process, then you need to prioritize what data you transfer first. While it can be interesting / cool to have / use 40 year old computer equipment, you want data you care about to be housed on more reliable storage than a magnetic floppy disk of whatever size and certainly not on an ancient cassette tape.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27 2022, @11:03AM (1 child)
Have to wonder why this post is marked Troll.
Can we have a Troll success rating as well, because this thread generated interesting conversation even if some moderators thinks it was just trolling.
How about a number that displays next to the comment showing its response mods added up?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday April 28 2022, @01:16PM
Shows troll 1 and underrated 2, so it was fixed. Just, the Troll mod carries more weight than the underrated mod, I guess.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 25 2022, @09:09PM
40 is the new 60?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday April 26 2022, @12:02AM
Sounds cool. But it's probably lost on younger generations. We had wedges when I was young, to keep doors open. Gubbermint buildings had metal door stops, with rubber ends, that you could kick down to hold a door open. At home, everyone had wedges. Obviously, this was before every American home had air conditioning, even at the Arctic Circle.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26 2022, @01:32AM
Nobody cares about your "computers" - well, maybe except for that R-pi toys.
Hehe, stupid insecure euroPEONS, hehehe.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Tuesday April 26 2022, @03:48AM (1 child)
Some of us were using our TI-99/4s and TI-99/4As, with even our fancy-pants, nifty-noodle 16-bit TMS9900 processors before your Speccy was even on the market...
Pffft!...
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday April 26 2022, @07:12AM
The Z80 had 16-bit instructions.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27 2022, @11:07AM
was typing in an adventure program, without revealing the details of how to win.
Guess two geeks could have swapped programs via audio cassette.