January 2020 - vcf-midatlantic

VCF EAST 2020 Classes
by Jeffrey Brace 03 Jan '20

03 Jan '20

It’s that time again ... Looking for people to teach classes on Friday, April 24. Please email me jeffrey(a)vcfed.org with your name, proposed topic and any A/V (or otherwise) requirements. -- ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President Vintage Computer Federation

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Repair Workshops January 2020
by Jeffrey Brace 02 Jan '20

02 Jan '20

Two repair workshops in January: One is at Bill Degan's site in Kennett Square, PA on January 4 The other is at InfoAge on January 25 & 26 in the CDL Hackerspace. There is a limit of 20 tables at one time, so be sure to sign up to guarantee a table. Signup Sheets: January 4, 2020 : Kennett Square, PA. at Bill Degnan's Kennett Classic Let him know that you are coming: Website: <https://www.kennettclassic.com/> January 25 & 26, 2020: InfoAge CDL Hackerspace building 9059 < https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LmYNLLK6CEOLCeOQCClhe1J20gpmVlyzmSs… > -- ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President Vintage Computer Federation

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] several things
by Dave McGuire 01 Jan '20

01 Jan '20

On 1/1/20 3:23 PM, Jonathan Sturges via vcf-midatlantic wrote: >> I would augment that by making it a *set* of drives, stored in a >> block-checksumming filesystem like ZFS, and treat the set of drives as a >> unit. ZFS filesystems in particular can be "imported" and "exported" >> to/from a system as a unit, making this convenient. > > Dave, totally agree with you on both the bit error rate issue as well as this recommendation. ZFS' importing/exporting capability has always been a favorite of mine. Question, which ZFS implementations do you use and trust these days? I value the import/export functionality too. I think that's one of ZFS' greatest features. I'm currently using "zfsonlinux" distribution on my main desktop system, and the Solaris 10 implementation (patched to current) for "big storage" pools. >> I've noticed a decrease in M-DISC availability lately. Do you have >> any idea of what's going on with that? > > Thanks for the heads-up about M-Discs, I wasn't aware of their status. I too have an LG drive that supports them but have never really used them. Microcenter has always sold them, though not in great quantity or anything, but at least it's a bricks-and-mortar option: > https://www.microcenter.com/product/452157/verbatim-m-disc-dvdr-4x-47-gb-12… Cool. Everyone who has used them or evaluated them has been impressed by them, so I sure hope they remain available. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Happy New Year
by Jeffrey Brace 01 Jan '20

01 Jan '20

On Tue, Dec 31, 2019 at 10:21 PM Bob Aviles via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > Hi All, > I just want to say Happy New Year!!!!! > Happy New Year to you as well Bobby! I wish you a healthy, prosperous and happy New Year! > Bobby > -- ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President Vintage Computer Federation

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M-Disc (was: several things)
by Herb Johnson 01 Jan '20

01 Jan '20

While DVD's and Blu-Rays are not on topic, archiving files for the long term seems plausible to discuss. Here's what I found from Web search today. Wikipedia on M-Disc is not current. It appears from Web search, that yours.co (the Web site for the alleged owners of Millenniata intellectual property) is not accessible at least today. Neither is mdisc.com. Domain registration for yours.co was renewed Aug 2019 so it ought to be. There's some kind of kickstarter for yours.co about "transforming videos into a magical experience" for delivery Oct 2018. I conclude yours.co is dead; of course millenniata was already dead. But they sold licenses to produce and label M-DISC to several brands of drives and media. Those resources seem to be active and available. Web search seems to show that Verbatum currently offers M-DISC media in blueray and DVD. The Verbatum page notes that to write to M-DISC requires special drives; Wikipedia was not specific on brands and models but has a similar note. Verbatum says the DVD or BR drive may have a "M-DISC" brand or label. Playback should not be a problem on ordinary DVD or BR drives, both sites say. Verbatum wants about $2 per 4X DVDR M-DISC in 25 packs. I didn't price Blue-Ray media. Other sites have similar prices. Given the application I would not buy non-branded media. Sites selling DVD or BR drives may specify M-DISC models; but check the manufacturer's docs to confirm. newegg shows an LG Blue-ray M-disc drive for $60 or $100. Amazon of course shows several models but some may be "all hat and no cattle" (liars). Dig deep to confirm specific support. But apparent LG external DVD slim drives seem to be cheap ($30). Given the range of prices, it may make sense to get a Blue-Ray compatible drive even if one only writes DVD's. I searched for plausible technical or review articles on M-DISC. What I found was semi-tech blogger who talked but didn't have serious data or experience to provide. Some were incoherent, maybe they were machine-translated English. But the physical technology of M-DISC seems like sound physics; and one needs M-DISC compatible drives for their higher power during write to physically punch through the "stone" coatings. Dave McGuire's post in this thread, seems to offer similar considerations to mine and a similar experience of looking at DVD and drive technology; his views are a little sharper. He makes a fair call for saving to smaller few-TB drives and archiving physical drives, on cost and performance and reliability; and makes other considerations which one should read. This discussion suggests to me, I should look at my stored DVD's and see if they have degraded by year. I have some redundancy and hopefully a run of DVD's might provide a complete set of desired archived files. I continue to recover files from diskettes four DECADES old, with drives of similar (sometimes newer) vintage; and occasionally from ZIP disks and drives maybe two decades old. So I'm optimistic. Regards for another decade, Herb Johnson -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net preserve, recover, restore 1970's computing email: hjohnson AT retrotechnology DOT com or try later herbjohnson AT retrotechnology DOT info

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Re: Re: [vcf-midatlantic] several things
by Jonathan Sturges 01 Jan '20

01 Jan '20

> I would augment that by making it a *set* of drives, stored in a > block-checksumming filesystem like ZFS, and treat the set of drives as a > unit. ZFS filesystems in particular can be "imported" and "exported" > to/from a system as a unit, making this convenient. Dave, totally agree with you on both the bit error rate issue as well as this recommendation. ZFS' importing/exporting capability has always been a favorite of mine. Question, which ZFS implementations do you use and trust these days? > I've noticed a decrease in M-DISC availability lately. Do you have > any idea of what's going on with that? Thanks for the heads-up about M-Discs, I wasn't aware of their status. I too have an LG drive that supports them but have never really used them. Microcenter has always sold them, though not in great quantity or anything, but at least it's a bricks-and-mortar option: https://www.microcenter.com/product/452157/verbatim-m-disc-dvdr-4x-47-gb-12… Happy New Year! -Jonathan

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Happy New Year!
by Jeffrey Brace 01 Jan '20

01 Jan '20

On behalf of the VCF board and steering committee, we wish all our members a very happy and prosperous new year! We appreciate all of our members, their contributions and camaraderie. Our members are what make us a great organization! We look forward to another fun, exciting and vintage year ahead of us as VCF goes into a new and improved, yet still vintage direction! :-D -- ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President Vintage Computer Federation

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Happy New Year
by Bob Aviles 31 Dec '19

31 Dec '19

Hi All, I just want to say Happy New Year!!!!! Bobby

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