Re: Lock 'N' Roll Disk Copy Program (similar to EDD3)

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

johnsonlam wrote:
> On Feb 14, 10:20 am, "Michael J. Mahon" <mjma...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>
> > I see--the title made me think it was a commercial program, and
> > I expected it to be copy protected.  ;-(
>
>
> Only a few can be avoided from cracking :-)
> People cracking motivation are awesome.
>
>
> > Although I understand your concern, and any medium will have a
> > finite life, I see no evidence of large numbers of suddenly unreadable
> > diskettes.
>
>
> Because in US climate usually dry, in my city humid always above 80%,
> hot summer and chill winter, fungus can cause rapid death of tapes and
> diskettes, our jokes is -- if the media can survive here they can use
> everywhere.

You're correct--I've been somewhat spoiled by the weather on the
west coast of the US.  ;-)

> > We will not be "surprised" by their sudden failure--there will be
> > years of warning as the error rates take off.
>
>
> While I got a bad sector in the middle of a binary, the file was gone
> forever.

I'd like to have had a crack at that...forever is a long time.  ;-)

Seriously, there is usually a lot of redundancy in files, even binary
files, and even if one byte remains unreadable, it is often possible
to determine which of the 256 possibilities is correct.

More often, a close inspection of the disk will reveal a tiny bit of
dirt, that, when carefully cleaned, restores the disk to readable
status.

> > Until that happens, I see no reason to worry about the readability
> > of magnetic media that is stored carefully.
>
>
> Most of the people here don't have garage, store room or something
> like this ...
> Small and high density living condition causing the trouble that
> nothing left behind after a period of time.

I'm also spoiled by always having plenty of storage space nearby...and
I get the impression that this is a quite common condition for folks who
frequent this group.  (At least the size of their collections suggests
that.  ;-)

> Thanks to my friend (we meet in this newsgroup), he manage to save a
> modified MCS music data on a bad sector floppy.

I have solicited examples of "failed media", and so far, I have never
seen a failed diskette that was not either 1) physically dirty or
damaged, or 2) manifestly zapped by either a malfunctioning drive or
a magnet.

Of course, fungus is a physical problem that can definitely do a disk
in, new or old.

But, again, my point is that if the media can be stored so that the
disks are physically safe and not exposed to high temperatures or
high magnetic fields, they they seem to remain readable.

Note that the failure mechanisms are just as dangerous for new disks
as for old disks, so I don't see any failure mechanism for diskettes
that is simply related to aging--there is always some physical problem
that could have been avoided.

BTW, who knows what deterioration effects will show up for CD-Rs and
DVD+/-Rs?  I have 30 years worth of experience that makes me trust my
5.25" floppies, but I only have about 6-7 years of experience with
optical recordable disks, and in that time I have experienced several
annoying failures--and there are lots of eggs in one of those baskets!

Now, if we begin to see the oxide coating flaking off the disks, or
the mylar of the disks becoming brittle and cracking, all under good
storage conditions, then it may be time to run for the hills--but
I still don't see evidence for that happening.

-michael

NadaPong: Network game demo for Apple II computers!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

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