[vcf-midatlantic] Museum report

[Dean Notarnicola]

Agreed that there is an imperative to restore, preserve and display all of
the original equipment. Part of preservation is using the equipment
judiciously so as to not accelerate its demise. Using solid state emulation
of disk drives in order to demonstrate software and usage is a good
compromise, so that original disk drives and media can be preserved.

On Tue, Dec 29, 2015 at 10:28 PM, Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic <
vcf-midatlantic at lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:

>
>   Further (replying to my own post, I had another thought), be aware
> that there are new floppy disks being manufactured to this very day,
> even 8" floppies.  As long as we keep buying them in sufficient volume,
> someone will keep making them.
>
>             -Dave
>
> On 12/29/2015 10:16 PM, Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
> >
> >   We cannot keep the hardware functioning for 10000 years, or even 100
> > years.  There are rubber and plastic components in a lot of this stuff,
> > and they are slowly deteriorating, depolymerizing, and falling to bits.
> >
> >   Our only hope in that are is that accessible, inexpensive, low-volume
> > manufacturing techniques, such as 3D printing, mature quickly enough for
> > us to be able to replace those components.
> >
> >               -Dave
> >
> > On 12/29/2015 10:06 PM, Joseph Oprysko via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
> >> My view on this is not the fact that we are in able to keep the HARDWARE
> >> functioning. We can keep that maintained for 10000 years. The magnetic
> >> media utilized by the disk drives have been reaching their end of life,
> NOS
> >> boxes have been opened, used, and found to be damaging to the hardware
> as
> >> the media is sloughing or flaking off the Mylar of the disk itself. So
> the
> >> question becomes restoration vs visual preservation while not losing
> >> logical functionality.
> >>
> >> On Tuesday, December 29, 2015, Douglas Crawford via vcf-midatlantic <
> >> vcf-midatlantic at lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:
> >>
> >>>
> >>> Our exhibit next time won't have the 1541 drives, but will use uIEC
> instead
> >>>> to reduce power and troubleshooting.
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> My $.02
> >>> Aw, lets be careful about that. I like the convenience of the SD card
> file
> >>> systems
> >>> and they have their place, but working disk drives are important to the
> >>> demoing history.
> >>> This was clear to me at NY Maker, and also was commented to me by
> >>> several individuals at VCFE.  If we can't keep disk drives going, we
> might
> >>> as well
> >>> admit failure on the whole restoration scene.
> >>>
> >>> BTW: I think the IBM PC boot drive is bad too or the DOS floppy in the
> >>> drive is bad.
> >>> It boots right into ROM basic.
> >>>
> >>> DC
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
> New Kensington, PA
>