Re: The Saltine's Disks Archived at Mac GUI Vault

[Moose <moose@move.to>]

> I agree that it's a great donation, but it's not at all surprising
> that all the disks still work.
>
> Unless a disk was of very low quality at the start, or was subjected
> to very punishing conditions since, 5.25" floppies should continue
> to work after all these years.

You've got a lot more experience that me with this Michael.

Around 1999/2000, I tried to backup about 20 of my old Apple ][ disks,
and IIRC, only about 2/3 were still OK, and they had been stored in
"gentle" conditions, had not been punished, and most were reasonable
quality disks (Data Life, etc).  Here we are 10 years later, and I'd
pleasantly surprised if half still worked.  (Sadly, my Apple ][c is
dead so I currently have no way of checking).

I have just gone through and checked all of The Saltine's disks, and
of the 160 disk images, 108 seemed fine, 50 had errors, and 2 I wasn't
sure about.  e.g. data disks for games that could well have "strange"
formats.

If anyone would like to read my brief report, I have uploaded it here:

The_Saltines_Disks__Disk_Check_Results__v1.0__Moose__21-Mar-2011.pdf
(16KB)
http://www.mediafire.com/?rm0976h97jldw8w

If the Mac GUI Vault wants to link to / mirror this file, please feel
free.  :)

All the best,

 Moose OMalley
____________________________________________________
 Moose's Software Valley - Established July, 1996.
 WEB: http://move.to/moose
____________________________________________________