On Sat, Nov 13, 2004 at 02:22:33PM +0800, Dale Hill wrote: > Most of the disks that I have picked up at second hand stores > still can be read if they have data on them. Unfortunately, those > disks which were heavily copy protected, what? 1 in 20 that they > work? That also goes for the 3.5 floppies as well.
I have found that the longevity of 5.25" floppies tends to be very good, though I should back mine up in the near future -- just to be safe. The ones which I have the most trouble with are the 3.5" disks. Depending upon the disk manufacturer, I'm facing 100% failure rates. Another pattern I've noticed about 3.5" diskettes: while I had a very low failure rate of high density diskettes a couple of years ago, the failure rate has exceeded that of much older double density diskettes in recent times. Things can change very quickly. Which brings me to a question: is there any disk imaging software for an 8-bit Apple II? I have a IIe card in a Mac LC 575, so something which can write directly to a ProDOS hard drive partition would be best. (I know of Asimov, but that is for the IIgs. I know of ADT, but that is via serial.) > That's why I always made dups to put in the classroom, and never > put the original in any of the classrooms. Call it illegal, what > you may, but ... I'm not going to call software backups illegal. Everybody should have that right, and to heck with the property owners. Copyrights and patents were meant to be temporary forms of protection in order to encourage people to develop new products. Unfortunately the duration of this protection has been increasing while property owners have been trying to shorten the useful life of their products. That sort of baloney is turning me off from computers, or turning me off from the latest stuff and leaving me lusting for the older stuff. The Apple II: when a personal computer was still personal. Byron. -- Apple2list is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... / Buy books, CDs, videos, and more from Amazon.com \ / <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/lowendmac> \ Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Apple2list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/apple2.html> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/apple2list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
