Re: Escaping Data Rot

["Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com>]

Dave Rawson wrote:
> Boy I'm had a miserable time trying get this to post...
>
> =====#####=====
>
> Michael J. Mahon wrote:
>  > Another approach you should consider, because of its speed and
>  > convenience, uses no Apple-like hardware at all:
>  >
>  > http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/2503
>  >
>  > For $60 plus an old 5.25" HD drive (from an old PC, for example),
>  > you get a fast way to convert *the front side* of all your disks
>  > to images on the a PC.
>
> Yes, I saw that.  That would speed up half the work, it seems.
>
>  > Converting the *back* side (if you "flipped" your disks to use
>  > the back side)
>
> Typically, I did.
>
>  > will require a modification to the 6.25" drive...
>
> What kind of modification?

Bill Garber, in another thread, reports that the recommended 5.25"
drive has a jumper to ignore the index hole, which, if it works,
would eliminate any problem reading the "back sides".

Failing that, you can either add another index hole sensor to the
drive, ORed with the first, or you can add a simple 555 pulse generator
to fake the drive into thinking it sees index pulses.

>  > Once the images are captured on a PC, CiderPress will make short
>  > work of viewing and/or capturing all the text as PC .txt files.
>
> I'm looking forward greatly to trying all this.  I really enjoyed my
> years with the old Apple ][+ and fiddling around for just these couple
> of days brought back lots of great memories of autodidactic discovery
> and delayed, but eventual gratification.

Hear, hear!

-michael

NadaNet and AppleCrate II: parallel computing for Apple II computers!
Home page: http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon

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