The recent "museum report" discussed in passing, whether to buy brand-new diskettes to avoid deteriorating old floppy diskettes. And a previous thread "Getting Data off old Atari Floppies" in Dec 2015, discussed how some old brands seem better (BASF) and some are outright rotten from age (Wabash). There were suggestions in the thread, about cleaning or baking diskettes. Let's make a list of some brands, see if we can get a consensus. If someone can post links to Web pages which have such lists or brand experiences, please add such links to your post. I'll be glad to host a final list on my Web site at: http://www.retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/drive.html Good brands: BASF, 3M, IBM, Verbatum, Dysan Bad brands: Wabash Herb Johnson -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net
Well, I have a sealed box of Bonus disks... let's see where they come out. :) On Wed, Dec 30, 2015 at 2:41 PM, Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:
The recent "museum report" discussed in passing, whether to buy brand-new diskettes to avoid deteriorating old floppy diskettes. And a previous thread "Getting Data off old Atari Floppies" in Dec 2015, discussed how some old brands seem better (BASF) and some are outright rotten from age (Wabash). There were suggestions in the thread, about cleaning or baking diskettes.
Let's make a list of some brands, see if we can get a consensus. If someone can post links to Web pages which have such lists or brand experiences, please add such links to your post. I'll be glad to host a final list on my Web site at:
http://www.retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/drive.html
Good brands: BASF, 3M, IBM, Verbatum, Dysan
Bad brands: Wabash
Herb Johnson
-- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net
-- Normal Person: Hey, it seems that you know a lot. Geek: To be honest, it's due to all the surfing I do. Normal Person: So you go surfing? Normal Person: But I don't think that has anything to do with knowing a lot... Geek: I think that's wrong on a fundamental level. Normal Person: Huh? Huh? What?
Well, I know Bonus is the Verbatim "Cheap" brand so we shall see, we shall see....
-- Normal Person: Hey, it seems that you know a lot. Geek: To be honest, it's due to all the surfing I do. Normal Person: So you go surfing? Normal Person: But I don't think that has anything to do with knowing a lot... Geek: I think that's wrong on a fundamental level. Normal Person: Huh? Huh? What?
On Dec 30, 2015, at 4:03 PM, Joseph Oprysko via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:
Well, I have a sealed box of Bonus disks... let's see where they come out. :)
I've actually had good luck with old used bonus disks. I acquired over a thousand 3m disks still sealed over a year ago (have about 500 of those left) and of the ones I've used they average 1 bad disk right out of the shrink wrap per every 2 boxes of ten. Verbatim disks I have had the lowest failure rate. Ultra magnetics were the highest failure rate. I actually had over 500 disks in storage from my bbs days in the 80s. My ae line went offline the end of the 80s and that's when that stuff went into storage. Pulled them back out late 2013 when I got back into using my apple IIs and A good chunk were ultra magnetics because back in the day they were dirt cheap. Well, I got what I paid for!! 90% failure rate on those. Had about 5 verbatim disks fail after 30 years (had over 150 of them) and only a small fraction of elephant disks fail. For what that's worth to the conversation. Tony
Well, like they say, Elephants have good memories. LOL. On Wednesday, December 30, 2015, Tony Bogan via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:
On Dec 30, 2015, at 4:03 PM, Joseph Oprysko via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org <javascript:;>> wrote:
Well, I have a sealed box of Bonus disks... let's see where they come out. :)
I've actually had good luck with old used bonus disks. I acquired over a thousand 3m disks still sealed over a year ago (have about 500 of those left) and of the ones I've used they average 1 bad disk right out of the shrink wrap per every 2 boxes of ten.
Verbatim disks I have had the lowest failure rate. Ultra magnetics were the highest failure rate.
I actually had over 500 disks in storage from my bbs days in the 80s. My ae line went offline the end of the 80s and that's when that stuff went into storage. Pulled them back out late 2013 when I got back into using my apple IIs and A good chunk were ultra magnetics because back in the day they were dirt cheap. Well, I got what I paid for!! 90% failure rate on those. Had about 5 verbatim disks fail after 30 years (had over 150 of them) and only a small fraction of elephant disks fail.
For what that's worth to the conversation. Tony
-- Normal Person: Hey, it seems that you know a lot. Geek: To be honest, it's due to all the surfing I do. Normal Person: So you go surfing? Normal Person: But I don't think that has anything to do with knowing a lot... Geek: I think that's wrong on a fundamental level. Normal Person: Huh? Huh? What?
participants (3)
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Herb Johnson -
Joseph Oprysko -
Tony Bogan