[vcf-midatlantic] Museum report

[Herb Johnson]

My responses to comments in this thread are below.

1) Evan requests to stay "on topic" and not discuss an analogy to the 
care of vintage instruments like violins. Evan: have you noted the topic 
is no longer a "museum report" but issues of Commodore floppy drive and 
conditions of floppy diskettes? I'd as soon suggest a change of 
"subject" line.

Another reason a change in subject line: there are and will be many 
"Museum report" messages, I'd as soon suggest they be dated. The 
maillist Web software will otherwise connect these all as the same 
"thread". These are issues of use, which are up to Evan of course.

2) Bill Degnan fights a losing battle to insist on "bottom posting". I 
respect his opinion but circumstances may encourage top-posting. I'd as 
soon complain about excessive quoting of prior messages. Again, Evan is 
the moderator over such things.

3) It's mentioned in passing that diskette media is deteriorating. My 
experience is that (other than mold) that condition depends on brand, 
and many old disks are still usable. I may start a new thread on this 
subject (see comment 1 above).

4) The issue of "too old to operate" is certainly a problem. I don't 
think there's any simple or general strategies. As a practical matter, 
the question comes down to brands and models of vintage devices which 
are known to suffer from specific "faults" of age and use. So policies 
are likely to be specific and not general.

I hope the general consideration is to operate original equipment, but 
there's already prior policy to make use of modern devices to supplement 
items on continuous display-in-use; where convenience and reliability 
are more important than "originality". and as Bill Degnan noted, one can 
always display the original at the same time.

Herb Johnson



-- 
Herbert R. Johnson,  New Jersey USA
http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net