Deja vue all over again

[Default User]

I've been reading SF anthologies of late. The most recent is Galactic
Empires, Neil Clarke editor.

As it's not an original anthology, I wasn't too surprised when some of
the first stories were familiar. Problem was, they all seemed familiar.
Apparently I read this at some time in the past. I didn't see any
evidence of it in Adobe or Kindle, so I probably read it in hardcover
from the library.

This is an e-book from the library, so it's not like it cost any money.
Still, I haven't had this happen in quite some time and it's a bit
disappointing when you think you've good a book full of stuff you like,
but find out it's stuff you liked.


Brian

[Paul S Person]

Theoretically, you /could/ keep a list of every book you ever read,
and check it before getting another.

But I wouldn't recommend it, as it is the sort of thing that tends to
become more trouble than it is worth.
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."

[Michael F. Stemper]

On 05/10/2022 11.24, Paul S Person wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Oct 2022 06:29:59 -0000 (UTC), "Default User"
> <defaul...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> I've been reading SF anthologies of late. The most recent is Galactic
>> Empires, Neil Clarke editor.
>>
>> As it's not an original anthology, I wasn't too surprised when some of
>> the first stories were familiar. Problem was, they all seemed familiar.
>> Apparently I read this at some time in the past. I didn't see any
>> evidence of it in Adobe or Kindle, so I probably read it in hardcover
>>from the library.
>>
>> This is an e-book from the library, so it's not like it cost any money.
>> Still, I haven't had this happen in quite some time and it's a bit
>> disappointing when you think you've good a book full of stuff you like,
>> but find out it's stuff you liked.
>
> Theoretically, you /could/ keep a list of every book you ever read,
> and check it before getting another.
>
> But I wouldn't recommend it, as it is the sort of thing that tends to
> become more trouble than it is worth.

I've kept a reading log since 1992, when I got my first PC. I
haven't noticed any trouble. What types of problem do you envision?

--
Michael F. Stemper
Economists have correctly predicted seven of the last three recessions.

[Default User]

Paul S Person wrote:

>On Wed, 5 Oct 2022 06:29:59 -0000 (UTC), "Default User"
><defaul...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>Apparently I read this at some time in the past. I
>>didn't see any evidence of it in Adobe or Kindle, so I probably
>>read it in hardcover from the library.

>Theoretically, you could keep a list of every book you ever read,

>and check it before getting another.

I did that for a while, but stopped updating the list in 2013. These
days, I am almost exclusively reading e-books, so I will have a record
of that. Even library books I leave the file in the Adobe or Kindle
folder.


Brian

[Ahasuerus]

It depends on what kind of log you keep. If it's one sentence per book,
it's unlikely to cause an issue. If it's one paragraph per book (the
way Don D'Ammassa does it -- see
https://www.dondammassa.com/R2C2022.htm), it shouldn't be a
big deal either. However, if you tend to write longer reviews, it can
become a chore. For example, my file of read Worm fan fics
covers 1,698 entries and is over 500K words or 250 words per
fic. And that's Worm fics, which include quite a few one shots.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Wednesday, 5 October 2022 at 07:30:04 UTC+1, Default User wrote:
> I've been reading SF anthologies of late. The most recent is Galactic
> Empires, Neil Clarke editor.
>
> As it's not an original anthology, I wasn't too surprised when some of
> the first stories were familiar. Problem was, they all seemed familiar.
> Apparently I read this at some time in the past.

That wouldn't necessarily make it familiar, if it was me.

Of course there's the whole sneaky "old book with a
new title" trick, too. Maybe you met it as, let's suppose,
_World of the Imperiums_. Or _The Empires Strike Back_.

[Michael F. Stemper]

On 05/10/2022 20.21, Ahasuerus wrote:
> On Wednesday, October 5, 2022 at 4:15:57 PM UTC-4, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
>> On 05/10/2022 11.24, Paul S Person wrote:

>>> Theoretically, you /could/ keep a list of every book you ever read,
>>> and check it before getting another.
>>>
>>> But I wouldn't recommend it, as it is the sort of thing that tends to
>>> become more trouble than it is worth.
>> I've kept a reading log since 1992, when I got my first PC. I
>> haven't noticed any trouble. What types of problem do you envision?
>
> It depends on what kind of log you keep. If it's one sentence per book,
> it's unlikely to cause an issue. If it's one paragraph per book (the
> way Don D'Ammassa does it -- see
> https://www.dondammassa.com/R2C2022.htm), it shouldn't be a
> big deal either.

It's much simpler, along the lines of what Paul said, "a list of every
book you ever read."

One three-field entry per book. The fields are: author, title, date finished.

$ tail -3 Read2022
Bova, Ben The Many Worlds of Science Fiction 09/11/22
Moore, C.L. Judgment Night 09/19/22
Nourse, Alan E. Tiger by the Tail 09/21/22
$



--
Michael F. Stemper
Nostalgia just ain't what it used to be.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <thmk0e$3ckrm$1...@dont-email.me>,

Nice to see Nourse still being read. I probably checked out _Raiders From
The Rings_ 50+ times from my school & public libraries. _The Universe
Between_ & _Scavengers In Space_ were up there too.
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

[Jack Bohn]

Default User wrote:
> I've been reading SF anthologies of late. The most recent is Galactic
> Empires, Neil Clarke editor.
>
> As it's not an original anthology, I wasn't too surprised when some of
> the first stories were familiar. Problem was, they all seemed familiar.
> Apparently I read this at some time in the past. I didn't see any
> evidence of it in Adobe or Kindle, so I probably read it in hardcover
> from the library.

There was a previous _Galactic Empires_ edited by Brian W. Aldiss, that would have given me pause, but a look at the contents of this shows no overlap.

(ISFDB shows a third _Galactic Empires_ between these two, it looks to be original fiction edited by Gardner Dozois, it shares only "The Man with the Golden Balloon" with the other. Someone or sometwo ought to collect an anthology or two on galactic empire stories between the 1950s and the 2000s. I know just the title for it.)

--
-Jack

[Paul S Person]

Depends on how fanatical you are about it.

When I rent an older film for streaming now, I have to check both a
three-sheet ODS file /and/ Quicken to be certain I never saw it
before.

And if you buy anthologies then you have to have a record of what's
/in/ the anthology, particularly novels and short novels, but also to
see if the "new" anthology actually has any stories you don't already
have, so it's no longer a simple list but has sub-lists. Or a separate
Sheet if using a spreadsheet that has those.

If you want to categorize your books, then non-fiction (in particular)
can get rough: a book on, say, the Battle of the Bulge can be
categorized by the battle itself, books about battles, books about
WWII (which themselves can be about the whole shebang, the Western
Allies, Western Europe after D-Day, the German Army ... etc), books
about the USA Army, books about the German Army, not to mention books
about the various commanders ... it can get very nasty.

IOW, the normal crud that appears whenever I (at least) try to catalog
reality. It's /never/ as simple as it seems it ought to be.

[Michael F. Stemper]

It was my first Nourse, picked up at age ten from the wire rack at
a sleazy gas station. The stories are pretty quirky, except for the
lead story, "Brightside Crossing", which is pretty straightforward
action-adventure.

At thirteen, I found _The Universe Between_ and _Psi High and Others_
in my junior high library. It was the first time that I encountered
the idea of otherwise unrelated stories having a common background,
in this case, The Hoffman Medical Center.

All of these are now on my shelves, as is Raiders. However, my book
log shows that I read it once -- in 1996 -- and haven't picked it up
since then.

[The Horny Goat]

On Wed, 5 Oct 2022 15:15:53 -0500, "Michael F. Stemper"
<michael...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Theoretically, you /could/ keep a list of every book you ever read,
>> and check it before getting another.
>>
>> But I wouldn't recommend it, as it is the sort of thing that tends to
>> become more trouble than it is worth.
>
>I've kept a reading log since 1992, when I got my first PC. I
>haven't noticed any trouble. What types of problem do you envision?

Years ago when I had an Apple II I created an Appleworks database of
books I owned (which obviously was a subset of books I'd read since my
mother got me my library card when I was 10 and took me there once or
twice a month until I got my drivers' licence)

Then Apple discontinued the Apple II and tried to get people like me
to buy Macs but didn't provide a way to port your datafiles from
Appleworks (Apple II) to Appleworks (Mac) and I said to myself "if I
have to trash all my software and files including this database why
should I spent my money with those who made me do so?"

The fact that I can list (as I demonstrated to my son earlier this
year) all the version numbers of MS-DOS and Windows in order from
beginning to end should tell you the choice I made.....

[Michael F. Stemper]

Fortunately, my log was a simple text file, which easily transferred
from DR-DOS to MS-DOS and thence to linux. I can't foresee any need
for any future inter-OS transfers.

--
Michael F. Stemper
The FAQ for rec.arts.sf.written is at
<http://leepers.us/evelyn/faqs/sf-written.htm>
Please read it before posting.

[Scott Lurndal]

I've kept my inventory in a mysql database for the last two decades;
simple to export into a set of SQL inserts for portability and easly
scripted:

testt (which without arguments lists all entries; with argument restricts
to those matching the first argument to testt).

$ testt | wc -l
Enter password:
2453

function testt
{
echo "select artist, title from media where title like '%${1}%' order by artist, title;" | \
mysql -p ${DATABASE}
}

[The Horny Goat]

On Mon, 10 Oct 2022 07:59:54 -0500, "Michael F. Stemper"
<michael...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> The fact that I can list (as I demonstrated to my son earlier this
>> year) all the version numbers of MS-DOS and Windows in order from
>> beginning to end should tell you the choice I made.....
>
>Fortunately, my log was a simple text file, which easily transferred
>from DR-DOS to MS-DOS and thence to linux. I can't foresee any need
>for any future inter-OS transfers.
>

These days I'd just e-mail it to myself with the Appleworks
spreadsheet as an attachment to see if it worked and if not try again
as a CSV. I don't think Appleworks supported that in the late 80s
early 90s but I could be wrong.

Certainly no salesman who was trying to sell me a Mac suggested
anything of the sort.

[Paul S Person]

On Mon, 10 Oct 2022 23:28:47 -0700, The Horny Goat <lcr...@home.ca>
wrote:

>On Mon, 10 Oct 2022 07:59:54 -0500, "Michael F. Stemper"
><michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> The fact that I can list (as I demonstrated to my son earlier this
>>> year) all the version numbers of MS-DOS and Windows in order from
>>> beginning to end should tell you the choice I made.....
>>
>>Fortunately, my log was a simple text file, which easily transferred
>>from DR-DOS to MS-DOS and thence to linux. I can't foresee any need
>>for any future inter-OS transfers.
>>
>These days I'd just e-mail it to myself with the Appleworks
>spreadsheet as an attachment to see if it worked and if not try again
>as a CSV. I don't think Appleworks supported that in the late 80s
>early 90s but I could be wrong.

I was going to ask if something like that was possible, but you beat
me to it.

I have no idea what Appleworks did, BTW, never having experienced it.

I do have experience using CSV to move data from a database I wrote in
Clarion to a low-cost home inventory program. It turned out to be less
simple than I had hoped: apparently, there is no clear standard
definition of "CSV", just some general ideas.

>Certainly no salesman who was trying to sell me a Mac suggested
>anything of the sort.

At that time, the concept of porting from one computer to a different
one was probably not all that well known. And I think Apple was the
only replacing one of its computers with another, and so was a
pioneer.

[Lynn McGuire]

Huh, we lived to port our engineering software on the big iron before
PCs became usable. At one point in the late 1970s we were supporting
the Univac 1108 (36 bit), CDC 7600 (60 bit), IBM 370 (32 bit) MVS and
CMS, the Prime 750 (32 bit), and something else that I cannot remember.
We dropped the Univac 1108 in 1982 and took on the first DEC VMS (32
bit) machine in 1984 ???. We briefly added the IBM AT/370 in 1985 and
outgrew it in a hurry (there was a 6 MB hard limit on code and data).
And we brought out our first 80386 / 80387 version on MSDOS in 1986
using the Pharlap memory extender.

Lynn

[The Horny Goat]

I can't recall whether I made a CSV off the Apple II or not - though I
>did< have first a 1200 then a 2400 baud modem on my II.

Obviously 25 years later my broadband file transfer speed is at what
would have been unimaginable levels then and that's true of nearly all
of us.

[The Horny Goat]

On Tue, 11 Oct 2022 09:46:56 -0700, Paul S Person
<pspe...@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:

>>Certainly no salesman who was trying to sell me a Mac suggested
>>anything of the sort.
>
>At that time, the concept of porting from one computer to a different
>one was probably not all that well known. And I think Apple was the
>only replacing one of its computers with another, and so was a
>pioneer.

A big part of the problem as I recall was that the II used 5.25"
floppies while the Mac never used anything but 3.5" floppies.

Because hard drives were not yet common while there were BBSes at that
time (which I certainly used having had a 1200 baud modem on a card
that went into an Apple II slot) I didn't get my first hard drive till
the MS-DOS machine that ended up replacing the II.

[The Horny Goat]

I remember most of those in my undergraduate days though my grad
school was big on DEC VAX machines and their ilk scattered around
campus. They saved the "big iron" for the university's own
administrative needs (payroll, scheduling etc)

[Paul S Person]

On Wed, 12 Oct 2022 02:18:15 -0700, The Horny Goat <lcr...@home.ca>
wrote:

And the 5.25" format would, no doubt, have turned out to be
Apple-specific. Which isn't unusual; my first computer (a NS Horizon)
had its own format (well, two of them if you added CP/M).

[Quadibloc]

On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 11:06:55 AM UTC-6, Paul S Person wrote:

> And the 5.25" format would, no doubt, have turned out to be
> Apple-specific. Which isn't unusual; my first computer (a NS Horizon)
> had its own format (well, two of them if you added CP/M).

Oh, indeed. Apple II disks had two formats, the original one, and a denser
improved one. The original one encoded four data bits into eight bits on the
disk. The improved one encoded five data bits into eight bits on the disk.

Everybody else, who used fancy custom silicon for their floppy disk controllers,
encoded _eight_ data bits at a time, into ten (or eleven or twelve) bits on the
disk - but Apple had Steve Wozniak working for them.

So the Apple II went beyond just having an Apple-specific disk format, like
many other computers out there with floppy disk drives. It had a fundamentally
unique disk format at the lowest level.

John Savard

[The Horny Goat]

On Wed, 12 Oct 2022 10:06:50 -0700, Paul S Person
<pspe...@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:

>>A big part of the problem as I recall was that the II used 5.25"
>>floppies while the Mac never used anything but 3.5" floppies.
>>
>>Because hard drives were not yet common while there were BBSes at that
>>time (which I certainly used having had a 1200 baud modem on a card
>>that went into an Apple II slot) I didn't get my first hard drive till
>>the MS-DOS machine that ended up replacing the II.
>
>And the 5.25" format would, no doubt, have turned out to be
>Apple-specific. Which isn't unusual; my first computer (a NS Horizon)
>had its own format (well, two of them if you added CP/M).

Didn't know that about the North Star but the Apple II and CP/M used
different formats though Apple made a CP/M add on card that made the
II a "CP/M box". So far as I know I only used one CP/M application and
trashed it when Appleworks 1.0 came out.

If my memory seems fuzzy - it was 1985-90 approximately after all

[David Johnston]

It's a very generic anthology title. Such things that can lead to
confusion.

[Quadibloc]

On Friday, October 14, 2022 at 2:34:52 PM UTC-6, The Horny Goat wrote:

> >And the 5.25" format would, no doubt, have turned out to be
> >Apple-specific. Which isn't unusual; my first computer (a NS Horizon)
> >had its own format (well, two of them if you added CP/M).

> Didn't know that about the North Star but the Apple II and CP/M used
> different formats though Apple made a CP/M add on card that made the
> II a "CP/M box". So far as I know I only used one CP/M application and
> trashed it when Appleworks 1.0 came out.

It's interesting that you mention the Apple _and_ North Star when discussing
disk format incompatibilities. Because, while in those days, nearly every
computer's disk format was incompatible with every other computer's disk
format, *those* two were extreme outliers.

Let's take the Apple II first. Most 5 1/4" floppies used a specialized integrated
circuit that translated eight bits of data from the computer into ten bits which
satisfied certain conditions to directly record on the disk.
The Apple, having been made in the early days of microcomputers, didn't
use that circuit - it was too expensive or hard to get. Instead, Wozniak's
genius let them use standard TTL. Software split the data up into units
of five or six bits (there were two distinct schemes used by Apple, the
original one with five, and the improved one with six) and those were
translated into units of eight bits, which could be recorded on the disk
with a standard MSI part doing the work.

North Star was an outlier in a completely different way. It was one of
the few computers that used "hard sectored" disks. To some of those
who read this, that phrase will bring a flood of circa 1977 memories
flooding back.
A normal floppy disk, in addition to the big hole in the center for the
spindle, has one tiny hole in the magnetic surface, which is sensed
photoelectrically, to indicate where the first sector of each track should
start.
A hard sectored disk, on the other hand, might have eight little holes,
one for each sector, plus one extra hole to indicate which sector was
first.

So those were perhaps the two most incompatible disk formats in
all computerdom!

John Savard

[pete...@gmail.com]

Even worse was the Amiga. Its 3.5 inch disks are in AmigaDos format, and
regular floppy drives can't read them, only Amiga drives. I still have disks
that I'm probably never going to be able to read again.

pt

[Jay E. Morris]

In a box, somewhere, I have about a dozen 8" PC floppies. I doubt that I
will ever get that data off. Bigger question though is why the hell do I
still have a dozen 8" disks lying about?

[pete...@gmail.com]

Ditto. I expect I also have a DECTape, and a TK70 tape cartridge somewhere.
I'm pretty sure I threw out all my card decks 20 years ago.

pt

[Scott Lurndal]

"pete...@gmail.com" <pete...@gmail.com> writes:
>On Thursday, March 2, 2023 at 10:07:13=E2=80=AFAM UTC-5, Jay E. Morris wrot=
>e:
>> On 3/2/2023 8:53 AM, pete...@gmail.com wrote:=20
>> > On Thursday, March 2, 2023 at 12:51:55=E2=80=AFAM UTC-5, Quadibloc wrot=

>> >>=20
>> >> So those were perhaps the two most incompatible disk formats in=20
>> >> all computerdom!=20
>> >=20
>> > Even worse was the Amiga. Its 3.5 inch disks are in AmigaDos format, an=
>d=20
>> > regular floppy drives can't read them, only Amiga drives. I still have =
>disks=20
>> > that I'm probably never going to be able to read again.=20
>> >=20
>> > pt
>> In a box, somewhere, I have about a dozen 8" PC floppies. I doubt that I=
>=20
>> will ever get that data off. Bigger question though is why the hell do I=
>=20

>> still have a dozen 8" disks lying about?
>
>Ditto. I expect I also have a DECTape, and a TK70 tape cartridge somewhere.
>I'm pretty sure I threw out all my card decks 20 years ago.

I've a box full of 9-track tapes and another of 4mm DAT tapes. I have
a SATA version of a 4mm DAT drive, but the only way I can get 9-track
tapes read is to ask Al at CHM.

I have a NOS box of 8" floppies I could probably flog on ebay.

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On 2 Mar 2023 at 14:53:07 GMT, "pete...@gmail.com"

Either a greaseweazle or a drawbridge can sort you out for reading those
into an Amiga disk image file (.adf) or connect them directly to an
emulated Amiga in WinUAE (or FS-UAE/vAmiga for Mac, or UAE/Amiberry for
Linux)

https://github.com/keirf/greaseweazle
https://amiga.robsmithdev.co.uk/

Some assembly may be required, but you can buy them pre-made too.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
"Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted;
persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished;
persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
By Order of the Author." -- Mark Twain

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <p84ML.142488$OD18...@fx08.iad>,

I remember a story about how there were only one or two machines left that
could play three track stereo session tapes back when they were putting
all of Sinatra's stuff on CD. If any more tapes turn up in a vault
now, I wonder if any are left?

[Paul S Person]

On Thu, 2 Mar 2023 09:07:06 -0600, "Jay E. Morris"
<mor...@epsilon3.comcon> wrote:

>On 3/2/2023 8:53 AM, pete...@gmail.com wrote:

>> On Thursday, March 2, 2023 at 12:51:55?AM UTC-5, Quadibloc wrote:

I found an external 3.5" USB-pluggable "floppy" drive on
[https://www.floppydisk.com/]. Whether they have 8" floppy drives I
have no idea.

Oh, and it /worked/. I now have images of the 3.5" "floppy" discs
stored online. I even installed Windows 3.1 from the images under
DOSBox!

[pete...@gmail.com]

Cool! Thanks!

pt

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On 2 Mar 2023 at 19:57:20 GMT, "pete...@gmail.com"

Minor correction, sorry: direct emulated support for these is limited to
WinUAE and Amiberry, as far as I can tell. Those combos will treat a PC
drive hooked up via one as an Amiga drive and read Amiga disks through
it.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
Sent from my Atari 400

[Lynn McGuire]

I have a Sun Sparc LX workstation upstairs in the office. It was last
booted in 2002 or so. I would like to start it up and pull a lot of
old source code off it that I never got around to moving to the PCs.
So, it just sits there as the disk drive was squealing the last time I
booted it up and I am fairly sure the next boot will kill it.

Lynn

[Dimensional Traveler]

Geez, the company I worked for in the late 1980's had an extremely hard
time finding 8" floppy drives, working or otherwise, for our
mini-mainframe. Any time we _heard_ of one possibly being available we
would try to buy it. For parts to repair our existing ones if nothing else.


--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

[Jay E. Morris]

I have a few DECTapes lying about. For a while I was removing the
innards and installing a digital (pun intended) clock in them. Haven't
done that for a while though.

[Jay E. Morris]

Yes, have both 5.25 and 3.5 externals. And USB interfaces for most types
of hard drives.

[Paul S Person]

On Thu, 2 Mar 2023 19:06:16 -0600, "Jay E. Morris"

I should, perhaps, provide a few more details:

I bought a refurbished drive, saving a few bucks, figuring it would
work long enough to copy the "floppy" disc into directories on my
computer.

What I got was a Dell FDDM-101. This is /exactly/ the sort of thing
made to plug into your computer if it has the proper connections. The
socket needed for that was still present on the drive.

It was wrapped (on the four edges) in a plastic (I think) sleeve that
contained the USB interface. IOW, no external case, and dropping it
would be likely to cause damage. Not, I should think, the sort of
thing you would want to carry about with you.

As to copying the files: a few would not copy when I tried to copy all
of them at once, but those did copy when I copied them individually.
So you do have to pay attention to what you are getting on the hard
drive.

As to availability -- I suspect there are quite a few of these drives
out there, long since considered outmoded, that can be fitted up this
way. Whether any are being manufactured seems doubtful, although my HP
Envy (purchased in 2014) does appear to have a bezel which might be
covering a drive bay. Of course, 2014 is a long time back in terms of
computers.

[BCFD36]

On 3/2/23 07:07, Jay E. Morris wrote:
> On 3/2/2023 8:53 AM, pete...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Thursday, March 2, 2023 at 12:51:55 AM UTC-5, Quadibloc wrote:

[stuff deleted]

>>
>> Even worse was the Amiga. Its 3.5 inch disks are in AmigaDos format, and
>> regular floppy drives can't read them, only Amiga drives. I still have
>> disks
>> that I'm probably never going to be able to read again.
>>
>> pt
>
> In a box, somewhere, I have about a dozen 8" PC floppies. I doubt that I
> will ever get that data off. Bigger question though is why the hell do I
> still have a dozen 8" disks lying about?

I recently threw away my Zip disks. I got rid of the drive years ago. Of
course, just in case, I smashed the disks and made them unreadable.
--
Dave Scruggs
Captain, Boulder Creek Fire (Retired)
Sr. Software Engineer (Retired, mostly)

[Jay E. Morris]

On 3/3/2023 12:59 PM, BCFD36 wrote:
> On 3/2/23 07:07, Jay E. Morris wrote:
>> On 3/2/2023 8:53 AM, pete...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> On Thursday, March 2, 2023 at 12:51:55 AM UTC-5, Quadibloc wrote:
>
> [stuff deleted]
>
>>>
>>> Even worse was the Amiga. Its 3.5 inch disks are in AmigaDos format, and
>>> regular floppy drives can't read them, only Amiga drives. I still
>>> have disks
>>> that I'm probably never going to be able to read again.
>>>
>>> pt
>>
>> In a box, somewhere, I have about a dozen 8" PC floppies. I doubt that
>> I will ever get that data off. Bigger question though is why the hell
>> do I still have a dozen 8" disks lying about?
>
> I recently threw away my Zip disks. I got rid of the drive years ago. Of
> course, just in case, I smashed the disks and made them unreadable.

Yeah, still got mine, and two drives. I really do need to start the
Swedish death cleaning.

[Titus G]

On 3/03/23 03:53, pete...@gmail.com wrote:

>
> Even worse was the Amiga. Its 3.5 inch disks are in AmigaDos format, and
> regular floppy drives can't read them, only Amiga drives. I still have disks
> that I'm probably never going to be able to read again.

As a hoarder of such things, I still have an Amiga though it hasn't been
plugged in for many years. It was used for games and music composition
(of dubious quality).

[Default User]

Yes, the title wouldn't tip me off. I've read at least one other
anthology with the title.


Brian