3.5" Discs
May 18, 2015 15:49:22 #
Remember the Good Old Days, when we used 3.5" discs? I found a couple of hundred upstairs in the garage while I was cleaning up. I have an external USB drive, and I've looked at some of the discs. Not - very - fast. Some of the discs don't load, but they've been upstairs in the garage for fifteen years or more, where it goes to well over 100° in the summer, so I guess that's excusable. At the time, I thought all this data was important enough to save. Now, it's just a few pounds of plastic to be recycled.
Those little discs were a big improvement over their 5.25" predecessors, though. They were compact and durable and held twice the data.
Those little discs were a big improvement over their 5.25" predecessors, though. They were compact and durable and held twice the data.
May 18, 2015 16:01:32 #
jerryc41 wrote:
Remember the Good Old Days, when we used 3.5"... (show quote)
Yes I also remember them and was so happy to get away from the 5 1/4 fragile disks. Even better than tapes and programming with punch cards in Fortran.
Thanks for the memory.
May 18, 2015 16:02:22 #
jerryc41 wrote:
Remember the Good Old Days, when we used 3.5"... (show quote)
Less than 2 feet from me on a book shelf are a few hundred of the 3 1/2" disks dedicated plastic file boxes. Mostly documents, school records from before I retired and at least three or four sets of disks for a couple of different DOS operating system editions and early (3.1 and 3.11 I believe) windows OS editions. Probably some of my early digital phots also. I need to dig out the external drive, maybe dust off the old laptop it went with and transfer those worth keeping to CDs or thumb drives for transfer to my archive files on the present machine.
Oh yes, one file rack of the 5.25 disks, including a state recognition game I used to teach US Geography. I have a mid 90s Dell tower in the garage with a 5.25 drive in it.
May 18, 2015 17:37:30 #
robertjerl wrote:
Less than 2 feet from me on a book shelf are a few... (show quote)
Why go to all that trouble to move the files from the discs to a HD? It seems that you have a pretty good archive the way they are, now. Just make sure you keep a 3.5" drive on hand so you can read the discs if - when - you really do have the need.
May 18, 2015 18:17:28 #
twowindsbear wrote:
Why go to all that trouble to move the files from the discs to a HD? It seems that you have a pretty good archive the way they are, now. Just make sure you keep a 3.5" drive on hand so you can read the discs if - when - you really do have the need.
Because I have an absurd amount of "old stuff" that needs to be weeded out. Especially since the wife is starting to think about getting out of California to somewhere it is cheaper to live and jobs for older specialty nurses are easier to find. I am retired, but she isn't ready to, got laid off when the hospital cut back and can't find anyone elsewhere who is willing to hire a senior OR nurse when new grads who will work cheaper are in good supply around here.
May 18, 2015 18:48:42 #
jerryc41 wrote:
...Those little discs were a big improvement over their 5.25" predecessors, though...
Also much better than the old 8" floppy disks or before that the cassette tapes, or before that the paper tapes or before that the patch boards.
May 18, 2015 19:57:12 #
jerryc41 wrote:
Remember the Good Old Days, when we used 3.5"... (show quote)
Ahhh yes, the good old days - When loading up a software package could mean loading 8-10 disks or more. Then you start on the next package. I used to have a file cabinet drawer full of 3.5" floppies for Microsoft Dos, Windows (when it was an app., not an OS) IBM OS-2, voice mail software and apps I can't even remember anymore. Quite the improvement on their predecessors, but I think I'll stick with CD/DVD media. :D
May 18, 2015 21:25:12 #
Architect1776 wrote:
Yes I also remember them and was so happy to get away from the 5 1/4 fragile disks. Even better than tapes and programming with punch cards in Fortran.
Thanks for the memory.
Thanks for the memory.
Yea, the 3.5's were SO much nicer!
It's amazing going from an RK05 to 8" to 5-1/4 to 3.5, and now thumb drives. Yes, I did FORTRAN on punch cards too, on an IBM OS-360, with 64K of memory.
May 19, 2015 07:27:21 #
I started on the 1401 with autocoder.
Longshadow wrote:
Yea, the 3.5's were SO much nicer!
It's amazing going from an RK05 to 8" to 5-1/4 to 3.5, and now thumb drives. Yes, I did FORTRAN on punch cards too, on an IBM OS-360, with 64K of memory.
It's amazing going from an RK05 to 8" to 5-1/4 to 3.5, and now thumb drives. Yes, I did FORTRAN on punch cards too, on an IBM OS-360, with 64K of memory.
May 19, 2015 07:33:38 #
May 19, 2015 07:59:31 #
I've still got piles of them laying around. VHS tapes too. Audio cassettes. 26" console tv so old it doesn't have a cable plug. Nobody wants it. There is even a Pioneer laser disc player and about 50 movies in a pile somewhere. Still got my reel to reel tape recorder. An 8mm movie projector and 2 slide projectors. Got just about every film camera I ever bought. Not to mention numerous DVD players old enough that they won't play writable DVD's. And there are even a few BOOKS here and there around the house.
May 19, 2015 08:10:58 #
May 19, 2015 08:30:12 #
3.5", 5.25", 8" disks, various sized tapes... All safely tucked away in my attic awaiting resurrection. All my Teletype paper tapes were used in a parade (after carefully cutting them lengthwise to prevent data theft.)
Here's a little seen gem:
Here's a little seen gem:
May 19, 2015 09:07:10 #
I have a similar problem with VHS tapes, I must have over a 100, nothing wrong with them, but nobody wants them! I've also got loads of 3.5 disc's
May 19, 2015 09:18:47 #
I have a pile of those myself, also mostly from my bygone teaching days, I really need to get rid of them but. . . .
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