Charles,
Thanks for the offer--the disks may be unreadable but it's worth a shot. I
will be at my Mom's where the disks are end of October and will I guess UPS
them home, I don't think I should carry them on the plane. So far the
consensus is to get ahold of a 5 1/4" drive (flea market, eBay) and connect
it to my computer. Since I have an older (10+ years) PC I use for
non-internet work stuff and it has a 3 1/2 floppy drive already, I can
probably get it hooked up to a 5 1/4".
My father was a brilliant engineer with several patents, including for the
first "electric eye" for automatic adjustment of fstop and time. He was one
of the first to use a desktop computer at work. He convinced Bell & Howell
to order Apple IIs for all engineers and convinced Apple to modify the Apple
IIs slightly for B&H's use. I wish I had known more about computers then and
am hoping the disks from those years will be helpful.
Thanks again for the offer, Charles--I may still need your equipment but
I'll give the other a try first. Jacqui
ps. Still on for 5 Mouth? There is a young man in the DFW area who is
relocated from Odessa and best friends with a PBSS dude. He has been to 5
Mouth, the 1st trip, and may want to join us. I don't have Lucas's contact
info but if you're still coming and you'd still like a rider I can get the
contact info. J.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Charles Goldsmith" <[email protected]>
To: "J. LaRue Thomas" <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, September 07, 2009 12:23 PM
Subject: Re: [Texascavers] request for computer help
Jacqui, I know I'm not local to you, but I can try to help. Depending
on how the disks were stored and where, they may be readable and may
not.
Cool, dry places with no humidity and not near any metallic objects
are the best way to store them. Being too close to another floppy
(paper envelopes didn't work too well) can also scramble them.
Either way, I'll do my best to read them and burn to CD.
For long term storage, even CD or DVD is not a good choice, they tend
to not read well after many years. Its best to test them every few
years and also keep backups on multiple computers. Its very much a
pain, but for important data, it's worth it.
Charles
On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 11:53 AM, J. LaRue Thomas<[email protected]>
wrote:
All,
This is not caving but you folks are the most likely to have the info I
need...
My father saved personal history information to the larger-type (5 inch?)
floppies. The info does not appear to be anywhere else. He used two
computers (1 Apple, 1 PC) but both died many years ago. I do not even
know
which computer he saved from.
Is there anyone out there who can still read large floppies and convert
their info to something my family can use? I will be where the disks are
in
late October.
Please respond to me off-list. Thanks, Jacqui
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