Read 5 1/4" floppies?

[John Atwood]

Hi,

I'd like to read some files off some 5 1/4" MS-DOS disks that contain some code I wrote in the early '80s.  I visited your hackerspace a few years ago and recall your room/museum of classic machines, some hopefully with 5 1/4" drives that'll read FAT (FAT12) formatted, soft-sectored diskettes. Of course, the iron oxide may not be stable, but it's worth a shot, right?

I've got about 10 or 20 disks; only about 10 contain code we wrote, but other disks contains tools we used (editors, assemblers, compilers, linkers, debuggers, etc.).  I'm in Corvallis.

Thanks,

John 

[Joel Bradshaw]

Hi John,

I can't speak for what's available at the hackerspace, as I'm only a casual visitor myself, but this post reminded me that I've long been meaning to get a Greaseweazle (https://muckypaws.com/2020/09/03/greaseweazle/) up and running with some of the old 5 1/4" drives I have laying around, and was the kick in the pants to actually make that happen!

Fast forward a couple weeks, and yesterday I finally got all the components together and successfully imaged a couple of the 5 1/4" floppies I inherited - they're (barely) older than I am, ha, I think somewhere in the mid-80's. My understanding is that the Greaseweazle reads the raw flux data from the sectors, so it can handle basically any format you throw at it, and in some cases can recover some data that may have faded past readable by the usual process. It's a handy little gadget!

 A disclaimer: I only just got this set up, and I have decent technical knowledge but very little experience specifically in archiving things. That said, I've now got a working Greaseweazle (v4) and a couple of functional old 5 1/4" drives that I'm happy to lend out and/or use to archive things. I'm up in (Northwest) Portland without a car, but if you find yourself in the area I'd be glad to meet up and see if we can archive some things, or if it's easier to mail some floppies my way I could image them and send you the files. If any of that sounds helpful, probably easiest to email me directly and we can work out the details.

Joel

P.S. Other folks with floppies who are reading along are welcome to reach out too - I make no promises about my capacity, but I'm glad to make use of my new gadget as I have time. I have several 3 1/2" drives as well, but no 8" drives (or disks) as of now.