Maxell is partnering with another company to bring out a new line of
audio cassette tapes <https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/storage/maxell-partners-with-disk-union-to-release-ud-60u-special-edition-cassettes-black-and-red-ud-tapes-could-be-ideal-for-use-in-your-c64-datassette>.

These are ?Type I? (ferric oxide) tapes, not the best fidelity for
audio recordings, due to their poorer high-frequency response.
However, the article suggests that retrocomputing enthusiasts trying
to relive the (very early) days of using cassettes as a data-storage
medium might be interested:

Nevertheless, ferric tapes are ideal for 8-bit home computer tape
storage. They would be perfect partners to a C64 Datassette, or
for any tape interface you may have used with a VIC-20, Plus/4, ZX
Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, MSX, BBC Micro, and so on. The square-ish
digital pulses used to encode data to audio (and read it back) are
actually in the sweet spot for ferric tape on low-end mechanisms.

My immediate thought is: ?you got to be kidding, right?? Not that I
have personal experience of such usage, but everything I?ve heard says
that they were clunky, slow, unreliable, frustrating, and basically a
sheer pain to use as a computer data/program storage medium. Who would
want to willingly suffer through those days again?

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 24 Aug 2026 02:47:06 GMT
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

On Sun, 23 Aug 2026 23:43:49 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:

My immediate thought is: ?you got to be kidding, right?? Not that I have personal experience of such usage, but everything I?ve heard says that
they were clunky, slow, unreliable, frustrating, and basically a sheer
pain to use as a computer data/program storage medium. Who would want to willingly suffer through those days again?

After seeing an ad for the Sinclair ZX-81 which was under 100 USD in the
kit form, I had to see what you got for that money. 32 character wide display via a RF modulator and your TV, a membrane keyboard, and program storage on a Walkman cassette player. It wasn't a high point in my
computing experience. It did make an adequate doorstop.

It's not a fair comparison because of the price but the Trash-80 and Commodore PET 4000 series had moved away from tape by then. iirc the
VIC-20 went back to the purpose build external cassette drive from the PET 2000 series.

The good old days...

So where's the floppy drive revival?!!

--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote this screed in ALL-CAPS (fixed):

Maxell is partnering with another company to bring out a new line of
audio cassette tapes <https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/storage/maxell-partners-with-disk-union-to-release-ud-60u-special-edition-cassettes-black-and-red-ud-tapes-could-be-ideal-for-use-in-your-c64-datassette>.

These are ?Type I? (ferric oxide) tapes, not the best fidelity for
audio recordings, due to their poorer high-frequency response.
However, the article suggests that retrocomputing enthusiasts trying
to relive the (very early) days of using cassettes as a data-storage
medium might be interested:

Nevertheless, ferric tapes are ideal for 8-bit home computer tape
storage. They would be perfect partners to a C64 Datassette, or
for any tape interface you may have used with a VIC-20, Plus/4, ZX
Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, MSX, BBC Micro, and so on. The square-ish
digital pulses used to encode data to audio (and read it back) are
actually in the sweet spot for ferric tape on low-end mechanisms.

My immediate thought is: ?you got to be kidding, right?? Not that I
have personal experience of such usage, but everything I?ve heard says
that they were clunky, slow, unreliable, frustrating, and basically a
sheer pain to use as a computer data/program storage medium. Who would
want to willingly suffer through those days again?

I bought a tap deck for my VIC-20. Keyed in a BASIC modem program
and saved it for reuse. Logged into the university mainframe with
it.

As for the other uses for cassettes, I'd hide a microphone under
the seat of my dad's rent-a-car for Saturday visitation (divorced
parents), troll him until he'd overreact, and later play the
recording for my mother.

I was a smart-ass little bastard.

--
Trouble always comes at the wrong time.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Tue, 25 Aug 2026 11:25:08 +0100, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:

So where's the floppy drive revival?!!

Now *there* is a medium I do have first-hand experience with.

While it was less clunky and perhaps a bit faster than cassette tape,
it still had reliability problems, too.

Back in my Macintosh days, I used to keep two backup copies of all the
programs I?d written, on floppy disks. Then when I got my first CD
writer, one of the first things I did was copy those programs (and all
the other data I valued) onto the more durable medium.

In the process, I hit the inevitable bad sectors on the floppies. I
remember there was one on *both* copies of the same set of files.
Luckily, I think they were in different spots (it was a while ago
now), so I was able to retrieve intact copies of all the files.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-08-25 23:35, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:

On Tue, 25 Aug 2026 11:25:08 +0100, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:

So where's the floppy drive revival?!!

Now *there* is a medium I do have first-hand experience with.

While it was less clunky and perhaps a bit faster than cassette tape,
it still had reliability problems, too.

Back in my Macintosh days, I used to keep two backup copies of all the programs I?d written, on floppy disks. Then when I got my first CD
writer, one of the first things I did was copy those programs (and all
the other data I valued) onto the more durable medium.

In the process, I hit the inevitable bad sectors on the floppies. I
remember there was one on *both* copies of the same set of files.
Luckily, I think they were in different spots (it was a while ago
now), so I was able to retrieve intact copies of all the files.

In the 80's, I did not get floppies with errors. Very very rare.

However, in the 90's, they were common.

--
Cheers, Carlos.
ES??, EU??;

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

In the 80's, I did not get floppies with errors. Very very rare.

However, in the 90's, they were common.

Yeah, back when I was in high school (the 80's) I had quite a few 5.25" disks that were treated relatively poorly and I don't recall ever seeing bad sectors on any of them.

Even in the early 90's my experience with 3.5" disks was that it was rare to find one with bad sectors.

Late 90's onwards and you felt lucky if you bought brand new disks and they /didn't/ have bad sectors straight out of the box (I used to re-format them, even if they claimed to be pre-formatted)...
--- tbbs/f30769b
* Origin: tbbs (3:633/420.1)

Lawrence D?Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

Maxell is partnering with another company to bring out a new line of
audio cassette tapes <https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/storage/maxell-partners-with-disk-union-to-release-ud-60u-special-edition-cassettes-black-and-red-ud-tapes-could-be-ideal-for-use-in-your-c64-datassette>.

These are ?Type I? (ferric oxide) tapes, not the best fidelity for
audio recordings, due to their poorer high-frequency response.
However, the article suggests that retrocomputing enthusiasts trying
to relive the (very early) days of using cassettes as a data-storage
medium might be interested:

Nevertheless, ferric tapes are ideal for 8-bit home computer tape
storage. They would be perfect partners to a C64 Datassette, or
for any tape interface you may have used with a VIC-20, Plus/4, ZX
Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, MSX, BBC Micro, and so on. The square-ish
digital pulses used to encode data to audio (and read it back) are
actually in the sweet spot for ferric tape on low-end mechanisms.

My immediate thought is: ?you got to be kidding, right?? Not that I
have personal experience of such usage, but everything I?ve heard says
that they were clunky, slow, unreliable, frustrating, and basically a
sheer pain to use as a computer data/program storage medium. Who would
want to willingly suffer through those days again?

I had ZX Spectrum for which the only persistent storage that I had
was on cassete tape. Once I had set correct signal level (highest
level was bad, too low was bad too) it worked reliably. Cassete
needed manual service: one had to put correct cassete (and correct
side) in the drive and start it simultaneously or after with giving
LOAD command (or whatever was appropriate). Normally one would want
to rewind tape to close before needed file or may be just store single
file on each side. LOAD with name would read tape searching for
correct file, but that was slow.

Typical use was to load a program and then use it for prolonged time.
On ZX Spectrum typical load was tens of seconds, say 20 seconds to
sloghtly more than 1 munute. Waiting for load was probably no
worse than waiting for some modern systems to boot.

Arguably for Real ZX Spectrum Experience(TM) you need cassete.
During loading you could hear sound from Spectrum speaker and
see characteristic pattern on border of the screen. Not that
was something nice. Simply to know how it really worked you
need the "effects". And probably need to experience wait to
understand practice. People did interesting things with Spectrum,
but clearly a lot of things which are easy now were clumsy or
impossible.

I think that sane persons do not want to go back to using
ZX Spectrum as their only computer. I do not know what
exactly motivates retrocomputing folks, but part of that
is to faithfully replicate past computing environment, its
drawbacks included.

--
Waldek Hebisch

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Bob Purdon <usenet@vk3heg.net> posted:

In the 80's, I did not get floppies with errors. Very very rare.

However, in the 90's, they were common.

Yeah, back when I was in high school (the 80's) I had quite a few 5.25" disks that were treated relatively poorly and I don't recall ever seeing bad sectors
on any of them.

Even in the early 90's my experience with 3.5" disks was that it was rare to find one with bad sectors.

Late 90's onwards and you felt lucky if you bought brand new disks and they /didn't/ have bad sectors straight out of the box (I used to re-format them, even if they claimed to be pre-formatted)...

Production quality dropped for floppies as the years went by. In the early years (70s, 80s) the quality of the disks were better. Better magnetic medium, more robust cases, etc. That's because publishers knew the disks would be frequently used both to boot/run applications, but also to save data. They *needed* to be robust. They built them to last, and the price reflected that.

As hard-drives became more common, floppy disks were relegated primarily to transport; you'd use them to install the application once, then put the disk
in a drawer. Or you'd use the floppy to copy a file from your hard-drive to move it to another PC. The disks saw much less use, and when they were used it just wasn't as critical that there weren't any errors. If an install disk failed, it was cheaper for the publishers to send the occasional individual
a replacement disk than to ship the whole run on high-quality disks. And if there was a bad-sector with your data on it, you'd just make a new copy
from your hard-disk.

So both publishers and users stopped purchasing the highest-quality disks and started focusing on price. Floppy disks were no longer seen as the key to
using a computer, but instead as disposable accessory. Manufacturers recognized this and changed production to match; they started making
cheaper, lower-quality disks because that's all that sold anymore.

TL;DR: A floppy disk from 1980? There's good odds it still works to this day. But I wouldn't trust one manufactured in 1995 to last a week after purchase.


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

rbowman <bowman@montana.com> posted:

On Tue, 25 Aug 2026 11:25:08 +0100, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:

So where's the floppy drive revival?!!

Or the IOmega 100 MB zip drives? Now there was storage!

It really was.

I remember the sheer /joy/ of using my Zip drive. 100MB (give or take)
on a single removable disk felt like magic. Gone were the days where you'd
have to split files over multiple disks to transport them to another computer; with Zip you'd copy whole directories in one go!

And it even was fast enough to run programs from (well, some programs. Doom worked, but you really felt the difference in transfer speeds!).

Zip drives not only made transfer easier, it got rid of those piles of floppies cluttering the place, and made it much easier to back stuff up. It really transformed the way I used files and computers; moreso than did CD-R
or thumb-drives. It felt so incredibly revolutionary and to this day there's
a part of me that is still surprised that it didn't have more of an impact
on the industry.

What really killed Zip-disk usage for me and mine wasn't better storage mediums
like optical disks... instead, it was networking. Wiring up all the computers into a cheap LAN negated a lot of ZIP's advantages; transport was a doddle,
a centralized file-server negated the need for huge hard-drives (or lots of zip disks) on local, and everything was more easily backed up. Optical and solid-state definitely ate into Zip-disk's raison d'ˆtre, but it was
cheap and easy networking that really put the nail into its coffin. At least for us.

But until that point... magic!





--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-08-26 17:02, SpallsHurgenson (NG) wrote:

rbowman <bowman@montana.com> posted:

On Tue, 25 Aug 2026 11:25:08 +0100, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:

So where's the floppy drive revival?!!

Or the IOmega 100 MB zip drives? Now there was storage!

It really was.

I remember the sheer /joy/ of using my Zip drive. 100MB (give or take)
on a single removable disk felt like magic. Gone were the days where you'd have to split files over multiple disks to transport them to another computer;
with Zip you'd copy whole directories in one go!

When I bought mine, it was 250 megs.

And it even was fast enough to run programs from (well, some programs. Doom worked, but you really felt the difference in transfer speeds!).

Zip drives not only made transfer easier, it got rid of those piles of floppies cluttering the place, and made it much easier to back stuff up. It really transformed the way I used files and computers; moreso than did CD-R or thumb-drives. It felt so incredibly revolutionary and to this day there's a part of me that is still surprised that it didn't have more of an impact
on the industry.

What really killed Zip-disk usage for me and mine wasn't better storage mediums
like optical disks... instead, it was networking. Wiring up all the computers into a cheap LAN negated a lot of ZIP's advantages; transport was a doddle,
a centralized file-server negated the need for huge hard-drives (or lots of zip disks) on local, and everything was more easily backed up. Optical and solid-state definitely ate into Zip-disk's raison d'ˆtre, but it was
cheap and easy networking that really put the nail into its coffin. At least for us.

But until that point... magic!

Before networked computers, I transferred data via serial or parallel computer, thus involving two computers.

I think it was Borland who could compile a C program in one computer,
and then launch it in another computer, while debugging it in the first.
THAT was magic, with MsDOS, thus only 1 MB of memory space. The debugger
took out needed RAM. Launching it in another machine meant that second computer only had a tiny stub of the debugger, the big user interface, debugger and compiler was in the first machine.

--
Cheers, Carlos.
ES??, EU??;

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-08-26, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

On Tue, 25 Aug 2026 15:07:00 -0400, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:

I bought a tap deck for my VIC-20. Keyed in a BASIC modem program and
saved it for reuse. Logged into the university mainframe with it.

Was it the purpose built tape deck the PET used in its early days? That probably was better than a random Walkman.

When I first built my IMSAI I didn't have any cassette decks
(I was into reel-to-reel at the time). Nor did I have a
casette interface board. But I did have an old Bell 202
modem - so I hooked it up to a serial port and recorded
it on the reel-to-reel decks that I did have. It worked.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | In this world there are
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | two kinds of people:
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | 1. Those who can extrapolate
/ \ if you read it the right way. | from incomplete data.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Wed, 26 Aug 2026 15:02:55 GMT, SpallsHurgenson(NG) wrote:

What really killed Zip-disk usage for me and mine wasn't better
storage mediums like optical disks... instead, it was networking.

You don?t remember the ?click of death??

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-08-27 02:48, rbowman wrote:

On Wed, 26 Aug 2026 18:54:45 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:

When I bought mine, it was 250 megs.

I had an internal 100 MB that I tried to use in a Linux box, probably
early Red Hat Linux. Short lived experiment as the sound of the heads crashing against the limits wasn't good.

I used my 250 megs in my Linux, no problem.

--
Cheers, Carlos.
ES??, EU??;

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-08-27 02:52, rbowman wrote:

On Wed, 26 Aug 2026 14:11:24 -0000 (UTC), Waldek Hebisch wrote:

I think that sane persons do not want to go back to using ZX Spectrum as
their only computer. I do not know what exactly motivates
retrocomputing folks, but part of that is to faithfully replicate past
computing environment, its drawbacks included.

The Spectrum was hi-tech compared to the ZX-81. A Commodore PET might be
fun but not that doorstop.

The Spectrum could connect to some sort of mini drive. I think it was a digital mini tape drive, with cartridges. You could connect several.

Microdrive was the name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX_Microdrive

--
Cheers, Carlos.
ES??, EU??;

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

rbowman wrote this screed in ALL-CAPS (fixed):

On Tue, 25 Aug 2026 15:07:00 -0400, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:

I bought a tap deck for my VIC-20. Keyed in a BASIC modem program and
saved it for reuse. Logged into the university mainframe with it.

Was it the purpose built tape deck the PET used in its early days? That probably was better than a random Walkman.

It was purpose-built for the VIC-20, iirc.

--
Memory should be the starting point of the present.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

rbowman wrote this screed in ALL-CAPS (fixed):

On Tue, 25 Aug 2026 21:35:08 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:

On Tue, 25 Aug 2026 11:25:08 +0100, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:

So where's the floppy drive revival?!!

Now *there* is a medium I do have first-hand experience with.

While it was less clunky and perhaps a bit faster than cassette tape, it
still had reliability problems, too.

Those DSDD 5 1/4 floppies were really something. I send my Osborne 1 back
to the factory to get the double sided drives installed. Then there was
the handy little jig so you could cut a notch in a cheaper single sided floppy and roll the dice on whether or not it would work.

At least the 5 1/4 floppies weren't as floppy as the 8" ones.

I did my Ph.D. qualifying exam on a PDP-11 and saved it to an 8"
floppy.

After a few years I got rid of it or lost it.

--
"I keep seeing spots in front of my eyes."
"Did you ever see a doctor?"
"No, just spots."

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

I've diligently copied stuff over and over thru the years - 5-1/4 to
3-1/2" floppy to CD to flash drive - and changed formats - Wordpro to
Word to Open Office. Very little of it was ever used, but I still have
some stuff that pre-dates PCs.

On 8/27/26 14:12, rbowman wrote:

On Thu, 27 Aug 2026 12:02:18 -0400, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:

I did my Ph.D. qualifying exam on a PDP-11 and saved it to an 8"
floppy.

After a few years I got rid of it or lost it.

Tack it to the filing cabinet with a refrigerator magnet. The folklore was the two greatest dangers to 8" floppies were magnets and pantyhose.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-08-27, Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> wrote:

I've diligently copied stuff over and over thru the years - 5-1/4 to
3-1/2" floppy to CD to flash drive - and changed formats - Wordpro to
Word to Open Office. Very little of it was ever used, but I still have
some stuff that pre-dates PCs.

My stuff that pre-dates PCs is mostly on 9-track tapes
or disk packs for drives which no longer exist. :-(

If I manage to get my IMSAI going, though, I might be able
to read my 8-inch floppies. (I've hung onto a machine with
a working 5 1/4-inch floppy drive.)

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | In this world there are
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | two kinds of people:
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | 1. Those who can extrapolate
/ \ if you read it the right way. | from incomplete data.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

"Kerr-Mudd, John" <admin@127.0.0.1> writes:

On 24 Aug 2026 02:47:06 GMT
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

On Sun, 23 Aug 2026 23:43:49 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:

My immediate thought is: ?you got to be kidding, right?? Not that I have >> > personal experience of such usage, but everything I?ve heard says that
they were clunky, slow, unreliable, frustrating, and basically a sheer
pain to use as a computer data/program storage medium. Who would want to >> > willingly suffer through those days again?

After seeing an ad for the Sinclair ZX-81 which was under 100 USD in the
kit form, I had to see what you got for that money. 32 character wide
display via a RF modulator and your TV, a membrane keyboard, and program
storage on a Walkman cassette player. It wasn't a high point in my
computing experience. It did make an adequate doorstop.

It's not a fair comparison because of the price but the Trash-80 and
Commodore PET 4000 series had moved away from tape by then. iirc the
VIC-20 went back to the purpose build external cassette drive from the PET >> 2000 series.

The good old days...

So where's the floppy drive revival?!!

Some of us never stopped using floppies. I can count the number of
floppies that have gone bad over the years on one hand. I lost
count on the number of flash drives that got damaged one way or another
or refused to write files or corrupt file system or files or mount.

CD/DVD's have slowly shown signs of decay. Some old discs won't
load or mount - especially the discs that were made in the 2000s. My
old, original mp3 backups-on-cd that I downloaded off napster are long
lost. Those discs were unreadable a few years ago. Some time ago, a
neighbor reported to me that a dvd of home videos no longer loads on his player. I suggested taking it to a professional data restoration service.

To me, floppies are still king for file-types that can be kept at a
small size.

It would be fascinating to see a homebrew audio tape backup system
developed today for modern computers. I did a cursory bit of reading, a ninety-minute tape could hold over 950mb of raw data @ 16bit/44.1kHz.

For documents and text files this would be functional. It would also
give me a reason to crack open a few piles of unused tape bought years
ago.

--
Daniel
sysop | air & wave bbs
finger | info@bbs.airandwave.net


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Fri, 28 Aug 2026 01:09:05 -0700, Daniel wrote:

CD/DVD's have slowly shown signs of decay. Some old discs won't load or
mount - especially the discs that were made in the 2000s. My old,
original mp3 backups-on-cd that I downloaded off napster are long lost.
Those discs were unreadable a few years ago. Some time ago, a neighbor reported to me that a dvd of home videos no longer loads on his player.
I suggested taking it to a professional data restoration service.

I agree. I checked and recovered most of my archive CDs from that era.

I found that dvdisaster got most of them OK. I now use dvdisaster to write
ECC data to all CDs/DVDs that I write, costing me about 20% of the space.
But it works - I had at a CD with a Swiss Army knife, then was able to
recover all the data!

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

"Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> posted:

On 2026-08-26 17:02, SpallsHurgenson (NG) wrote:

Or the IOmega 100 MB zip drives? Now there was storage!

I remember the sheer /joy/ of using my Zip drive. 100MB (give or take)
on a single removable disk felt like magic. Gone were the days where you'd have to split files over multiple disks to transport them to another computer;
with Zip you'd copy whole directories in one go!

Before networked computers, I transferred data via serial or parallel computer, thus involving two computers.

I occasionally tried null-modem cables for transfer. It was never
satisfactory for me. Firstly, you were always limited to just two computers, which meant a lot of cable swapping. Then getting the machines to handshake, and the slow-transfer rates... it was always easier for me, back then, to
just yank out the floppy disks.

Well, at least until the files started getting TOO large to fit on the disk. But with 1.44mb floppy disks and good compression, you could usually squeeze 2MB
of data or more on the disk... and really, who needs files larger than that? 2MB ought to be enough for everybody! ;-)

#

I still have an ancient PC with an IDE Zip-Drive in it. It still
works (and so do the disks. Click-of-death was an undeniable issue, but
it really wasn't as common as it's sometimes made out to be).

Unfortunately, I don't have a SECOND computer with a ZIP drive, which limits the utility of the first ;-)





--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Fri, 28 Aug 2026 01:09:05 -0700
Daniel <me@fuhgitabutit.com> wrote:

It would be fascinating to see a homebrew audio tape backup system
developed today for modern computers. I did a cursory bit of reading,
a ninety-minute tape could hold over 950mb of raw data @ 16bit/
44.1kHz.

...which would be great, if cassette tape had the frequency response to faithfully reproduce a 44.1 KHz signal at 16-bit accuracy (96 dB S/N.)
Actual cassette response is more along the lines of 12-19 KHz and 50-67
dB, per someone on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28962169
They estimate the effective maximum data rate as somewhere from 199-422
Kbps, compared to CD audio's 1.4112 Mbps - still a reasonable amount of
data, but off by a factor of 3-7x. Then, of course, there's degradation
over time...


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Fri, 28 Aug 2026 14:53:50 GMT, SpallsHurgenson(NG) wrote:

I occasionally tried null-modem cables for transfer. It was never satisfactory for me.

In the early years of my career, I had to do (or assist with) a lot of
file transfers that way, because we had no choice -- the different
platforms had no exchangeable media formats in common.

Kermit was a wonderful tool for this -- there were implementations for
just about every platform.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:

On Fri, 28 Aug 2026 01:09:05 -0700, Daniel wrote:

It would be fascinating to see a homebrew audio tape backup system
developed today for modern computers. I did a cursory bit of reading, a
ninety-minute tape could hold over 950mb of raw data @ 16bit/44.1kHz.

I may still have it someplace but I had a QIC drive. I forget if it was a
40 or 80. They topped out a 120 MB though. Later versions held more.

I would check the capstan and rollers -very- carefully. Most of the
QIC150 drive's I've seen in the last decade have had very sticky rollers.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

rbowman wrote this screed in ALL-CAPS (fixed):

On Fri, 28 Aug 2026 01:09:05 -0700, Daniel wrote:

It would be fascinating to see a homebrew audio tape backup system
developed today for modern computers. I did a cursory bit of reading, a
ninety-minute tape could hold over 950mb of raw data @ 16bit/44.1kHz.

Well, you won't get anywhere near 44 kHz with any cassette tape.

I may still have it someplace but I had a QIC drive. I forget if it was a
40 or 80. They topped out a 120 MB though. Later versions held more.

--
Yow! And then we could sit on the hoods of cars at stop lights!

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

To: SpallsHurgenson(NG)

SpallsHurgenson(NG) wrote to alt.folklore.computers <=-

I occasionally tried null-modem cables for transfer. It was never satisfactory for me. Firstly, you were always limited to just two computers, which meant a lot of cable swapping. Then getting the
machines to handshake, and the slow-transfer rates... it was always
easier for me, back then, to just yank out the floppy disks.

I have gotten rid of many obsolete cables over the years - first MFM
ribbon cables, then ATA cables, then older USB cables, an old AT
keyboard extension cable, parallel cables, and the list goes on.

The one legacy cable I keep around is a laplink DB9 to DB9 serial
cable. I'm sure it'll come in handy *someday*...

kurt weiske | kweiske at realitycheckbbs dot org
| http://realitycheckbbs.org
| 1:218/700@fidonet

Well, at least until the files started getting TOO large to fit on the disk. But with 1.44mb floppy disks and good compression, you could
usually squeeze 2MB of data or more on the disk... and really, who
needs files larger than that? 2MB ought to be enough for everybody! ;-)

#

I still have an ancient PC with an IDE Zip-Drive in it. It still
works (and so do the disks. Click-of-death was an undeniable issue, but
it really wasn't as common as it's sometimes made out to be).

Unfortunately, I don't have a SECOND computer with a ZIP drive, which limits the utility of the first ;-)

--- Synchronet 3.22a-Win32 NewsLink 1.2

--- MultiMail/Win v0.52
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Win32 NewsLink 1.2
* realitycheckBBS - Aptos, CA - telnet://realitycheckbbs.org

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Kurt Weiske wrote this screed in ALL-CAPS (fixed):

To: SpallsHurgenson(NG)

SpallsHurgenson(NG) wrote to alt.folklore.computers <=-

I occasionally tried null-modem cables for transfer. It was never satisfactory for me. Firstly, you were always limited to just two computers, which meant a lot of cable swapping. Then getting the
machines to handshake, and the slow-transfer rates... it was always easier for me, back then, to just yank out the floppy disks.

I have gotten rid of many obsolete cables over the years - first MFM
ribbon cables, then ATA cables, then older USB cables, an old AT
keyboard extension cable, parallel cables, and the list goes on.

The one legacy cable I keep around is a laplink DB9 to DB9 serial
cable. I'm sure it'll come in handy *someday*...

I still have a USB-to-DB9 that I used for testing on Cisco routers
in racks in boxcars to be shipped overseas. Used gtkterm iirc.

--
Loose bits sink chips.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Sat, 29 Aug 2026 15:47:38 -0400, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:

Kurt Weiske wrote this screed in ALL-CAPS (fixed):

To: SpallsHurgenson(NG)

SpallsHurgenson(NG) wrote to alt.folklore.computers <=-

I occasionally tried null-modem cables for transfer. It was never
satisfactory for me. Firstly, you were always limited to just two
computers, which meant a lot of cable swapping. Then getting the
machines to handshake, and the slow-transfer rates... it was always
easier for me, back then, to just yank out the floppy disks.

I have gotten rid of many obsolete cables over the years - first MFM
ribbon cables, then ATA cables, then older USB cables, an old AT
keyboard extension cable, parallel cables, and the list goes on.

The one legacy cable I keep around is a laplink DB9 to DB9 serial
cable. I'm sure it'll come in handy *someday*...

I still have a USB-to-DB9 that I used for testing on Cisco routers in
racks in boxcars to be shipped overseas. Used gtkterm iirc.

I think you both mean DE-9.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-08-29, Bob Eager <throwaway0008@eager.cx> wrote:

On Sat, 29 Aug 2026 15:47:38 -0400, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:

I still have a USB-to-DB9 that I used for testing on Cisco routers in
racks in boxcars to be shipped overseas. Used gtkterm iirc.

I think you both mean DE-9.

Thanks. It's good to know I'm not the only nitpicker here.

As for the rest of you, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-subminiature#Common_misnomers

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | In this world there are
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | two kinds of people:
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | 1. Those who can extrapolate
/ \ if you read it the right way. | from incomplete data.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

"Kurt Weiske" <kurt.weiske@realitycheckbbs.org.remove-lo6-this> posted:

To: SpallsHurgenson(NG)

SpallsHurgenson(NG) wrote to alt.folklore.computers <=-

I occasionally tried null-modem cables for transfer. It was never satisfactory for me. Firstly, you were always limited to just two computers, which meant a lot of cable swapping. Then getting the machines to handshake, and the slow-transfer rates... it was always easier for me, back then, to just yank out the floppy disks.

I have gotten rid of many obsolete cables over the years - first MFM
ribbon cables, then ATA cables, then older USB cables, an old AT
keyboard extension cable, parallel cables, and the list goes on.

The one legacy cable I keep around is a laplink DB9 to DB9 serial
cable. I'm sure it'll come in handy *someday*...

I admire your ability to discard. I still have a host of old cables. I'd
be more willing to toss them out if --time and time again-- I didn't find
use for the old things. Sure, I might not need that SCSI-50-to-25 cable
/right now/ but who knows what may happen in the next twenty years? There's many the time I've been working on a project and have kicked myself for discarding some 'obsolete' component ten years back that would have been perfect for just that moment.

That said... I probably /could/ survive a culling of some of the
IEC power cables. I'm pretty sure those things breed like rabbits, I've
so many of them.




--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-08-29, SpallsHurgenson(NG) wrote:

"Kurt Weiske" <kurt.weiske@realitycheckbbs.org.remove-lo6-this> posted:

To: SpallsHurgenson(NG)

SpallsHurgenson(NG) wrote to alt.folklore.computers <=-

I occasionally tried null-modem cables for transfer. It was never
satisfactory for me. Firstly, you were always limited to just two
computers, which meant a lot of cable swapping. Then getting the
machines to handshake, and the slow-transfer rates... it was always
easier for me, back then, to just yank out the floppy disks.

I have gotten rid of many obsolete cables over the years - first MFM
ribbon cables, then ATA cables, then older USB cables, an old AT
keyboard extension cable, parallel cables, and the list goes on.

The one legacy cable I keep around is a laplink DB9 to DB9 serial
cable. I'm sure it'll come in handy *someday*...

I admire your ability to discard. I still have a host of old cables. I'd
be more willing to toss them out if --time and time again-- I didn't find
use for the old things. Sure, I might not need that SCSI-50-to-25 cable /right now/ but who knows what may happen in the next twenty years? There's many the time I've been working on a project and have kicked myself for discarding some 'obsolete' component ten years back that would have been perfect for just that moment.

That said... I probably /could/ survive a culling of some of the
IEC power cables. I'm pretty sure those things breed like rabbits, I've
so many of them.

A rule/law should be established that states that

Regarding computer and equipment cables, for a given type, one will
either 1) have not enough such cables, 2) have too many such cables.

But I'm guessing someone already stated that at some point :-P



I have somewhere a couple boxes with at least two multi-media PCI
ethernet cards and cabling and terminators because, while I currently
don't have the time or space, that means I can set up a 10base2 LAN
again when time and space allows. (And PCI means I'm more likely to have
or find a couple desktop computers that can use them.)

--
Nuno Silva

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Bob Eager wrote this screed in ALL-CAPS (fixed):

On Sat, 29 Aug 2026 15:47:38 -0400, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:

Kurt Weiske wrote this screed in ALL-CAPS (fixed):

To: SpallsHurgenson(NG)

SpallsHurgenson(NG) wrote to alt.folklore.computers <=-

I occasionally tried null-modem cables for transfer. It was never
satisfactory for me. Firstly, you were always limited to just two
computers, which meant a lot of cable swapping. Then getting the
machines to handshake, and the slow-transfer rates... it was always
easier for me, back then, to just yank out the floppy disks.

I have gotten rid of many obsolete cables over the years - first MFM
ribbon cables, then ATA cables, then older USB cables, an old AT
keyboard extension cable, parallel cables, and the list goes on.

The one legacy cable I keep around is a laplink DB9 to DB9 serial
cable. I'm sure it'll come in handy *someday*...

I still have a USB-to-DB9 that I used for testing on Cisco routers in
racks in boxcars to be shipped overseas. Used gtkterm iirc.

I think you both mean DE-9.

"A DE-9 connector is a small, 9-pin analog plug from the
D-subminiature family, commonly and widely known as a DB-9
connector."

--
QOTD:
"Like this rose, our love will wilt and die."

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Sun, 30 Aug 2026 12:18:46 -0400, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:

Bob Eager wrote this screed in ALL-CAPS (fixed):

No, I didn't.

I think you both mean DE-9.

"A DE-9 connector is a small, 9-pin analog plug from the
D-subminiature family, commonly and widely known as a DB-9
connector."

And incorrectly. The 9 refers to the number of pins. The DSE refers to the shell size. DB is the shell size commonly used for 25 pin connectors. And
a DE-15 is a typical VGA connector.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Sat, 29 Aug 2026 22:31:30 GMT
SpallsHurgenson(NG) <user14325@newsgrouper.org.invalid> wrote:

That said... I probably /could/ survive a culling of some of the
IEC power cables. I'm pretty sure those things breed like rabbits,
I've so many of them.

That's what I always tell myself...right up 'til I need one, at which
point there's not a free cable to be found :/


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)