Adrian, please stop listening to the few whining comments. 99% of us love what you do, regardless of the length of the video. The silent majority loves you as you are
IBM ACIS was the ACademic Information Systems Division that was set up to target IBM PCs into the Higher Education market to compete with Apple and DEC.
One big difference between the good discs and the bad discs is, all the good discs have been stored in their sleeves whereas all the bad discs bar 1 were not stored in their sleeves.I'd say that has had a huge effect on the condition of the discs.
I come for your long videos as they are very cathartic. Your in depth nature is what makes you and your videos so pleasant to listen to and watch. Please keep making long videos.
Why would someone complain about the length of the video? I could understand if he just talked about nothing but you are getting great content for free from Adrian!
Please ignore whiners about video length, the depth of your videos is what separates them from the lowest attention span targeting of most of the junk on TH-cam.
Plus, even the best magnetic media has only a few decades of "life". Well, certainly in relation to holding their last recorded data that is. But chances are, these are past their "life".
In other words, it means nothing at all? Maybe if you had a source for that, maybe some historic case ruling? Because otherwise "lifetime of product" is even too much interpretation. Maybe it does have legal meaning, but if it doesn't, just say "lifetime warranty" means nothing at all.
Who in their right mind would think it means something like forever as long as the company exists? Obviously, you can't expect a replacement for a type of product that isn't being produced anymore, especially products that are not made up of different parts. I mean, an obsolete storage format is not the same as some spare part for a discontinued car model.
If you read the warranty fine print, the "lifetime" is usually considered to be the sales & service life of the product, i.e. as long as they continue to actively manufacture/sell/support the product. Of course, that's very easy to get out of, just release a new version of the product every year with a slightly different colour...
I have a better idea: let´s send the whiny people off Earth instead, and you, me, and all the other connoisseurs of the long videos get to stay here. J/K ;)
I've very gently cleaned moldy spots from original game diskettes with a cotton swap and IPA. Takes a long time but most tested working afterwards (though I was compelled to clean the drive heads too after). That said, I gave up on a huge stash of floppies I found on Craigslist once when I discovered they were moldy. Your videos are perfect. Entertaining and VERY helpful. Don't change a thing.
0:34 - May I suggest adding 'markers' or whatever they're called in TH-cam-ese! :) I've noticed several TH-camrs doing this, Techmoan and EEVBlog for starters. Keep up the content! To me, your videos can NEVER be 'loo long'!
Couldn't agree more with the others here, I much prefer the long(er) episodes, more variety = more of my attention. Keep up the great work as always. Karl UK.
You do you, Adrian. Some people aren’t happy unless they are sharing their inherent misery with others. Before you pitch the moldy oldies, what of scanning the labels so if someone wanted to print some for nostalgia’s sake… but seeing the mold makes me glad I had the presence of mind to transfer all the disks I wanted to keep to a hard drive and backups.
Trick:An easier way to examine the surface of the disk. Put two fingers (left hand) in the hub ring, spin the shell with single finger (right hand) on corner. It was shown to me by Mike J. Henry. That was how he discovered the laser burn protection. He was looking for a hole punched into the disk.
I recently refurbished and set up my old c64 (ASSY 250407) and the 1541(ALPS) from 1983. All (!) my 90+ Disks worked perfect after 30+ Years stored in the original paper sleeves in the original cardboard boxes. The C64 and the disks are always stored in a cupboard at around 20..28 degree celsius. No direkt sunlight etc. The disks are from different brands and even nonames. I am very impressed and happy to have a look back to my old source code!
I would not recommend storing plastic items in plastic bags/boxes for several years. The bags could evaporate plasticizers that harm the items in it. And I would'nt mix different kind of plastic in a closed container. I really think paper or cardboard in a dry environment helps a lot to keep some harmfull chemicals away from delicate plastics. IMHO
exactly / I would expect any disc that was sleeveless would be a write off, but mold .. I’m glad this is mentioned, not many would think to check before it is too late / I was very surprised that decade after decade my Apple //e floppies - all still work, games, spreadsheets. that impressed me the magnetism was retained that long / hopefully others experience that too / wonder what caused the super stuck disc issue, but all the sleeveless ones were obviously not loved right / will be sparking up my old system soon, has been off since 2014, but the monitor is on display since 2018 to remind me I need to explore that magic again
for me video's are not too long and can always pause them and continue watching the next time ( so you don't have too rush it just take your time to look through items, do it the way you like there are always people commenting no matter what way you do it).....
Firstly keep doing what you're doing, I love your videos how they are. Secondly, seeing so many bad discs reminded me of the collection of amiga and St discs I had that were all good and tested ok etc. Unfortunately just before the pandemic hit my upstairs neighbour had a leak from his boiler and it was not spotted for a while, allowing the water to drain into the gap between the floors, which has a lot of sand in as a noise deadening and fire break material (they're old flats built in the 60s), which then brought the ceiling down in my storage room, where I had a large amount of items stored whilst tidying another area of the flat. All of the wet sand and ceiling material dumped on the collection of discs, tapes and magazines. Thankfully not all the magazines were soaked, but the tapes and the discs were damaged beyond use, even if I had felt I could have cleaned them I never would have trusted them to use in a drive again. About a month ago my neighbour had a leak from his bath... Thankfully as it is a housing association property I didn't have to worry about cleaning up the mess or repairing the ceiling, but the bath leak has put my wetroom bathroom out of commission for a good few weeks yet. I will be moving fairly soon mind, so hopefully will have no further problems like that!
Babbages! Omg that brings back memories. Used to work at Babbages as a teen in the late 80s and Radio Shack as well. Loved getting a sneak peak at all the new games for my apple iie and iigs, the clunky Compaq portables and giant cell phones. Appreciate your content, Adrian, and the memories. Wish I still had those machines. 😊
My advice is to do what you feel is best for your channel. I personally love your content, I have no problem with the length of videos, and I love that you upload often. Cheers!
Unless you live in a dry climate, you can count on mold accumulating on a 5 1/4 inch disk surface. Storing them in a sealed container with a few packets of Silica Gel, will prevent moisture and mold damage.
@@adriansdigitalbasement2 When I encounter a dirty or stuck disk, I say CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. :) On any random disk, there might be some interesting data that should be preserved. After the data has been preserved, contaminated disks should of course be discarded. For used disks in good condition, I first preserve the data and only then reformat them for my own daily use, or simply just sell them to the next owner.
Bloody Hell Adrian - stick to what you do, and what you want to do. Its good enough for 25 thousand + other people. You can't please ALL the people ALL of the time.
I’ve heard that the thing about single sided disks is that single sided drives had no standardization on which side the disk they actually used… so the manufacturers of the disks had to actually make double sided disks, error-checked on both sides, to ensure compatibility with the range of drives out there.
possibly, yeah. but not the reason. cost. two heads cost double. seems like nothing, but making the 2nd side good/same . ain’t trivial. every aspect has to be considered. at some point the market pressure and progress made advances and dual sided became the norm for the blanks, but for the drives .. I didn’t know barely anyone that had a double sided drive (1983-86 era), we were punching a hole, and test format both. most good[er] brands would be error free on both sides, but cheaper disks .. always had worse success rates. Memorex, Dysan, Fuji, Verbatim all were way better in every way. fit. finish. sound. labels. sleeves. boxes. if you cheaped out, you got crap, and regretted it. Fuji .. they made probably the best and nicest stuff for a reasonable cost in discs, and tapes .. cassette, Hi8 ... for years. I was paying 3 or 3.50 vs 5.00 per floppy (buying them in boxes of 10 at a time) in Canada anyhow. Certified Data .. were okay, but noisier when they spun, as every aspect of the materials + construction were thinner, inferior. ripping them apart, seeing the materials that kept the layers apart and could keep the odd stray bits of environmental particles off the media .. it was very apparent that you always get what you pay for. I was broke, but always got the best media I could get my hands on. saving a few cents .. and losing data just seems dumb.
i took an old FDD and turned it in to a disk cleaner for old disks like this.. 2 wide felt cleaners i can change out and clean. just put some cleaner on them and let it run for a few mins ..
Hi! Preservationist / archivist here. For moldy disks, I remove them from the jacket, give them a alcohol bath, place them in a donor jacket, and rip the data for archival. Next stop: the trash. Frankly, I think you're pretty brave to keep even the ones that tested good. I have found that mold spreads. While those disks might test good NOW, there's no telling if there is a patch in the inside corner of the disk, infesting the Mylar or cotton in the jacket away from the emulsion. Again, for now. It doesn't sound like you're hurting for disks, so I suggest that you send the disks that tested OK to the bin as well. It just seems like an unnecessary risk keeping them around. Cheers!
To be fair, all disks will be bad soon.. not just from the mold risk. While it might be risky to to use potentially contaminated disks and speed the process of other disks, i'm just wondering what the timeline is left for even the most optimally kept disks.
I really like how you explain electronics and old tech I've learned alot from your videos. Although there are many of your old videos I'd like to see, and it's hard to search for the old ones because youtube has no way of searching for old videos or should I say originals!
Kinda neat seeing the Harris logo badge, I spent many years in broadcast engineering (FM Class B) in addition to my primary work in the computing / networking / communications world. I spent many years working with Harris transmitters (great pieces of engineering in my opinion), and they are not defunct, they have rebranded their transmitter business as GatesAir.
Love your videos. Don't listen to the haters. You will never be able to please them. Everyone else can see how much you enjoy this content and thats what makes us come back, because we enjoy it as well. Keep up the great work and appreciate your expended energies into making all this great content.
Speaking about cleaning. One of the first jobs I had we had an IBM mainframe and a DEC PDP-11 which used RL02 and RK05 disks. They had a company that would come in every once in a while to actually physically clean the disks. Take them out of the big holder packs and clean them off and put them back.
Remember the Verbatim disks that were Teflon-coated? They had a tan appearance from the coating, and their ads would show the disks covered with coffee, jelly from doughnuts, and all sorts of things and they claimed that the data could still be recovered. I had a ton of those.
I have been buying boxes of VHS tapes from eBay, and some of them have been significantly moldy. A few were able to be cleaned and recovered, but the worst ones just went straight in the trash - didn't want to risk playing them. Never occurred to me that old floppy disks could suffer from similar issues!
I still have a Babbage's mouse pad for my C64. Anyway, earlier this year I started going through my C64 backup disks to check and make sure they were still good, and I found several disks with mold on them. My own fault because I had them in the basement of my old house, and there was a bit of a moisture problem at that location. Even things in the upstairs closets had mold, so it's no surprise some of the floppy disks in the basement did, too.
I hate that floppy disks have a reputation for poor reliability. Old floppies are exceptionally reliable if they've been stored properly. I have thousands of disks from the 80's and practically all still work flawlessly. The first disk I ever bought with my own money is a green 3.5" disk for my Amiga 1000. I used the heck out of it and it's still error free. I'd trust an 80's floppy over a USB flash any day. Well, except for the bulk packs from the 2000's. Manufacturing standards really dropped off when floppies were being phased out, so the newer the disk, the less likely it is to work. I have tons of sealed NOS disks from Micro Networks and about a third are bad out of the box.
I have 3.5 inch DD disks which were at one point drilled out and force-formatted to 1.44MB. They currently (since 1995) have Windows 3.0 on them, and last time I used them (6 months ago?) they all work properly, at least for a typical installation. I am noticing some failure rates within the last 3-5 years, nothing alarming though.
I say i like the Longer videos better, as more topics and things to cover, i say keep both long and short videos, as there really isn't Much on any more, so keep them comming.
Brings back memories of software development in the 80s. The boss insisted on buying Inmac own brand diskettes with a lifetime warranty - the snag was the diskettes were very poor quality and didn't even have a centre reinforcing ring. The failure rate was awful. I think he sent a few back but they were obviously gambling on customers not returning enough diskettes to wipe out their profit.
Hi, they wont last forever, but kept in a jacket and in a cool dry place helps. Stored in the plastic floppy storage bins, well there is no air circulation To cold you get damp, to hot you get mould - you cant win Same with 3.5's while more protected and not exposed they have a similar issue, but i find the ones with the thin cotton type washer / insulator last better because of the extra physical barrier plus there is a soft layer between the rotating magnetic disk and the hard plastic case Back in the day i had plenty of floppies, but the last of the 5.25's were very cheap and junky, some brand new out of the box would not format or were unreliable, same with the 3.5's In my Amiga and say 486/P1/P2 they would work, then one day read errors. I now have the opinion that the early big brand stock while expensive were well made, the late to market cheap copies were just that - cheap and nasty My son had a set of colored 3.5's in his school days, different color for each school class, i am sure the orange and yellow one got washed in his jeans at least once a month - true story - they were 3M's
I had this problem with Apple 2gs games I bought from the east coast, moldy disks, cleaned all but one and they all work, but these were originals of the Kings Quest Series for the GS on 3.5 disks. bummer Kq2-GS had one borked disk with too much mold after cleaning it wont read. Never had any disks that were being used here in Colorado, even with using a swamp cooler for years and years, never had mold on any disks. But I seen it on Commodore 5.25 disks from the east coast I think those came from Florida. They do clog the heads of the apple 3.5 GS drives, until all the mold is gone from the disks. what a PITA that was. disk clean disk clean, and then found the mold, used a donor drive and removed the heads to make something that could spin the disks I was trying to clean. Worked like a charm.
Likewise will mirror the comments of those who say they enjoy your videos regardless of length. Not sure why some people would whine about that - look elsewhere if the video is too long!
I would still clean the mold off the surface and attempt to use them. It's nothing to clean the drive head. It's another matter if it holds important data. SpartaDOS on the Atari 8-bit can format and use disks with bad tracks. I don't have to lay down 40 tracks if there are any bad sectors after track 35 - SpartaDOS can format 35 tracks instead. ☺
That's believable, but what is your source. Is there a federal law, or court cases that established precedent? As I said, its believable and appealing, but are you sure it isn't urban legend or false internet meme?
@@squirlmy As said, it is quite fuzzy. It is my own experience though. When I called up on some equipment that had "Lifetime warranty" that I needed to get replaced due to some original manufacturing fault, I got the response that the product is no longer being supported, and thus its lifetime has ended. Only 8 months old. from the date of purchase. So if you must need a "reference". It's me then. My own experience.
@@sysghost fair enough. My experience has been that response is so random-seeming, that I don't know if "lifetime of product" really means anything more than "lifetime warranty". Occasionally I'm pleasantly surprised, I'm just trying to figure it out. I just bough a Framework laptop specifically because they aim to repair and upgrade with modular, well labelled components. But I'm still nervous how long they'll stay in business.
Bad floppy discs drove me insane working on my Amiga 500. I was aware of the issue, but dirt/mold/degrading wasn't visible on most of the discs. I could not work out what was wrong with my floppy drive. Random read and write errors with no logic to the problems. A proper cleaning of what looked like a clean read head with known working discs and that was it, no more issues. Sometimes I guess the bad discs aren't even visible.
Memorex: "Yep, lifetime warranty means lifetime." Adrian: "Yes!!!!" Memorex: "We'll send a replacement out as soon as you provide an receipt for the original purchase..." Adrian: "Well, pooh."
Hello. You are for me number one retro computer channel on youtube. love watching both of your channels. Channel number 2 is too similar to channel number 1. (Mini Mini Mail Cal) should be called something else! often they are not short. but I love them. But i also love to see when you are trying to repair a computer or computer related stuff.
Yeah, Babbage's. I remember when the first one opened up near my house in Lakeside Mall (suburban Detroit). My friend and I rode our bikes to the mall, and walking past it, we thought, "What's this? Oh, a software store! Cool!" Went there many, many times to buy various pieces of software.
Having good sleeves helps alot beileve it or not, ive seen some disks kept in some pretty crappy enviroments but had good sleeves and are still in good shape, It also helps when tempatures dont swing alot as they were stored, In a fairly airtight container in constantly hot-ish temperatures ( 85 - 110F ish), its better than fluctuation.
A number of manufacturers used Tyvek to make the sleeves, they were almost indestructible and I don't recall ever having a failure on a disk stored in one of thoses sleeves.
@Adrian's Digital Basement ][ Adrian, there will always be whiners. You keep doing things that are interesting and if the videos end up being long, that's what happens. It's all good. Carry on good sir!! Edit: There is a technique I once used for cleaning the surface of floppy disks. Get a can of Lemon Pledge(yup the furniture polish) and spray some into a small cup, then carefully wipe the disc surface with a very soft cloth while turning the disc in the jacket. Don't worry about excess polish on the disc, the felt on the inside of the jacket will absorb it and help keep the disc clean. This worked on A LOT of floppies BITD. I was known for being the "Disc Fixer Guy". Polish will not hurt the disc, the jacket or the drive but works a treat to clean cruddy discs, even ones with mold(Lemon Pledge kills mold). Give it a try, what do you have to loose? And I'll bet you could make a video about it.
I used to work at Babbage's back in the early 90's. A neat place to work, but not such a great place to shop. I recall selling hot new release games for 79.99 when K-Mart and other big retailers had the same games for $30 cheaper. They also let employee's take games home to "review" them, then bring them back in store, reseal and put back on the shelf as new. Not a very nice thing to do, but even worse when they were PC games that had only so many installations before the disk was "used" up.
4:20 Lemme just take the opportunity to suggest my favourite mounting tape. Gorilla Heavy Duty. They claim a bond strength of 30 lbs. I use it for dashcams in my personal car, and for an amber strobe in my work van. The strobe must weigh like 2 or 3 pounds, and a healthy application of Gorilla tape has held it on to _windshield glass_ for like 3 years now.
Harris is still in business. They merged with L3 a few years ago and formed L3Harris. The logo you have ceased to be used in 1997 or so. It was based on the logo of a Company called Radiation that they absorbed in the late 1960's. I worked there for a few decades...
I know some people that either worked for or still for for either Harris or L3. Too bad about the FAA’s NVS (NAS Voice System). Guess VSCS and VTABS will have to chug along a little while longer. Fun fact: some x86 processors (like used in those last two systems mentioned) are branded Harris.
@@nickpalance3622 Yes, I am familiar with the CMOS X86 processors that Harris manufactured. the 20 mhz 286 is a great little chip (for a 286 anyway!) Those were from the Harris' Semiconductor (later intersil) division, which was spun-off in the late 1990's by the CEO Phil Farmer who single-handedly transformed Harris from a successful Fortune 500 company into a successful Fortune 1000 company. VSCS was a great program. I worked on some parts of it. It's hard to believe that was more than 20 years ago...
Adrian, I wouldn't hold my breath, but for fun, try sending a few of the failed "lifetime warranty" diskettes in and request replacements. ;) If I had your riches of diskettes & other magnetic media, I'd throw questionable media away too, but since I'm "poor" (media-wise), I'd open every diskette (sleeve?) and attempt to clean the media. Of course, the "foam stuff" inside the sleeves that is supposed to capture contaminates would be difficult to impossible to clean safely (as far as the media is concerned), so I'd probably have to swap media between known-good sleeves. I'm _really_ short on 8-inch diskettes for my RX01s & RX02s and will most likely be doing the above cleaning/inspecting on a lot of diskettes! A few years back, before retirement, I had a POC in Management @ 3M, who made DEC's DECtapes, and asked him if 3M still had any NOS tapes hidden away in a forgotten warehouse anywhere. He actually looked through their inventory systems, but struck out. However, he was able to point me to the company that had purchased DEC's tape manufacturing. Of course, by that time, _that_ company was out of the business of making magnetic tape, but was still in business making other stuff. Speaking of magnetic tape, when in college, a few of us were allowed into an Amperex (I think) factory see their problems with their tensioning systems for the standing loops for _huge_ tape rolls before they entered the slicing machines to make whatever width end-product tape was needed. It was interesting to see those rolls of uncut/unsliced tape, similar to rolls of paper in a paper mill, but obviously a lot shorter. It's been a _long_ time, so I have to guess they were between 4- & 8-feet (1.2-2.4 m) wide, many being sliced to the ~1/8 to 1/4-inch (3.2-6.4-mm) wide cassette tape sizes, some to the 1-inch (25.4-mm) wide Unimax size, etc.
I got to see one broadcast house that had an 8” floppy animated system, that would let you grab all 4 fields of video and let you scrub the capture, pick a field, paint on it, rebroadcast it .. ancient, but bulletproof, that was 1989 or early 90. blew my mind. never seen another working 8” drive since.
I didn't check the channel, I thought this is an LGR blurb because I saw a floppy disk and the angular font on the thumbnail and my mind went straight to LGR. I was surprised to hear Adrian instead of Clint :D (by the way, I'm actually watching your videos at least 1.25x speed, when you are showing every side of a boring random box, I'm speeding up to 2.0x speed)
![Adrian's Digital Basement ][](http://yt3.ggpht.com/ytc/AIdro_k7CrQRe71qN6c0Ua7A1P_I8KkxjqLa70u0zYeCvdvnKw=s48-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj)
Adrian, please stop listening to the few whining comments. 99% of us love what you do, regardless of the length of the video. The silent majority loves you as you are
100000000000% this!
Completely agree!
Important that you're enjoying yourself, as a creator, first. Every choice you make will have detractors, so you might as well be happy. 😎🥃
I totally agree with the OP.
@@EzeePosseTV Likewise….a pox on the short attention span crowd!
IBM ACIS was the ACademic Information Systems Division that was set up to target IBM PCs into the Higher Education market to compete with Apple and DEC.
One big difference between the good discs and the bad discs is, all the good discs have been stored in their sleeves whereas all the bad discs bar 1 were not stored in their sleeves.I'd say that has had a huge effect on the condition of the discs.
Certainly helps keep dirt out of the drive surface and depending upon what that dirt is and how it is stored will determine if they will survive.
I come for your long videos as they are very cathartic. Your in depth nature is what makes you and your videos so pleasant to listen to and watch. Please keep making long videos.
Adrian, the videos are never too long. Now that the candy is discussed elsewhere :)
In his stomach maybe :)
I agree never too long 😉
Tik tok generation cant pay attention for more than 60 seconds.
@@johns.7609 🤣
I kinda liked the candy reviews, when it was 30 seconds or less, anyways. It just got out of control!
Why would someone complain about the length of the video? I could understand if he just talked about nothing but you are getting great content for free from Adrian!
Please ignore whiners about video length, the depth of your videos is what separates them from the lowest attention span targeting of most of the junk on TH-cam.
"Lifetime Warranty" usually means "lifetime of the product" and that is arbitrary and up to the manufacturer.
Plus, even the best magnetic media has only a few decades of "life". Well, certainly in relation to holding their last recorded data that is. But chances are, these are past their "life".
I called the Nashua customer service back in the day, that's pretty much what the guy said. Yay for marketing.
In other words, it means nothing at all? Maybe if you had a source for that, maybe some historic case ruling? Because otherwise "lifetime of product" is even too much interpretation. Maybe it does have legal meaning, but if it doesn't, just say "lifetime warranty" means nothing at all.
Who in their right mind would think it means something like forever as long as the company exists? Obviously, you can't expect a replacement for a type of product that isn't being produced anymore, especially products that are not made up of different parts. I mean, an obsolete storage format is not the same as some spare part for a discontinued car model.
If you read the warranty fine print, the "lifetime" is usually considered to be the sales & service life of the product, i.e. as long as they continue to actively manufacture/sell/support the product. Of course, that's very easy to get out of, just release a new version of the product every year with a slightly different colour...
It's also possible the paper sleeves act as a buffer for humidity, absorbing it instead of having it stick on the surface.
IIRC many of the quality disk sleeves are made from Tyvek which we use in the U.S. to wrap houses with, which usually repels humidity, etc.
Too long? People are complaining about too much excellent free entertainment? I think I want off the Earth.
I have a better idea: let´s send the whiny people off Earth instead, and you, me, and all the other connoisseurs of the long videos get to stay here.
J/K ;)
LGR showed some 3D printed disk holders with littled 3D printed wheels you could use to spin the disk to inspect ( and maybe clean them)
I've very gently cleaned moldy spots from original game diskettes with a cotton swap and IPA. Takes a long time but most tested working afterwards (though I was compelled to clean the drive heads too after). That said, I gave up on a huge stash of floppies I found on Craigslist once when I discovered they were moldy.
Your videos are perfect. Entertaining and VERY helpful. Don't change a thing.
0:34 - May I suggest adding 'markers' or whatever they're called in TH-cam-ese! :) I've noticed several TH-camrs doing this, Techmoan and EEVBlog for starters. Keep up the content! To me, your videos can NEVER be 'loo long'!
I would like to go on record as one of the viewers that always enjoy the long mail call videos. Thank You.
Couldn't agree more with the others here, I much prefer the long(er) episodes, more variety = more of my attention. Keep up the great work as always. Karl UK.
I don't care ow long the videos are, if I have to, I will watch them in two or more sessions.
Agreed, and I often do watch in multiple sessions but i always make the time
me also
You do you, Adrian. Some people aren’t happy unless they are sharing their inherent misery with others. Before you pitch the moldy oldies, what of scanning the labels so if someone wanted to print some for nostalgia’s sake… but seeing the mold makes me glad I had the presence of mind to transfer all the disks I wanted to keep to a hard drive and backups.
Trick:An easier way to examine the surface of the disk. Put two fingers (left hand) in the hub ring, spin the shell with single finger (right hand) on corner. It was shown to me by Mike J. Henry. That was how he discovered the laser burn protection. He was looking for a hole punched into the disk.
I recently refurbished and set up my old c64 (ASSY 250407) and the 1541(ALPS) from 1983. All (!) my 90+ Disks worked perfect after 30+ Years stored in the original paper sleeves in the original cardboard boxes. The C64 and the disks are always stored in a cupboard at around 20..28 degree celsius. No direkt sunlight etc.
The disks are from different brands and even nonames. I am very impressed and happy to have a look back to my old source code!
I would not recommend storing plastic items in plastic bags/boxes for several years. The bags could evaporate plasticizers that harm the items in it. And I would'nt mix different kind of plastic in a closed container. I really think paper or cardboard in a dry environment helps a lot to keep some harmfull chemicals away from delicate plastics. IMHO
I notice every "good" disk had been kept in a sleeve.
My theory is that the disks developed mold because of the plastic bag and the one having sleeves were protected.
@@N0zer0 Makes sense. One of those "Do not eat" moisture drying packets would have been a good idea.
exactly / I would expect any disc that was sleeveless would be a write off, but mold .. I’m glad this is mentioned, not many would think to check before it is too late / I was very surprised that decade after decade my Apple //e floppies - all still work, games, spreadsheets. that impressed me the magnetism was retained that long / hopefully others experience that too / wonder what caused the super stuck disc issue, but all the sleeveless ones were obviously not loved right / will be sparking up my old system soon, has been off since 2014, but the monitor is on display since 2018 to remind me I need to explore that magic again
I enjoy the mini format. I didn't expect mini to mean short, just less detailed
for me video's are not too long and can always pause them and continue watching the next time
( so you don't have too rush it just take your time to look through items, do it the way you like there are always people commenting no matter what way you do it).....
I’m always disappointed when your videos are short. The more Adrian the better as far as I’m concerned.
Firstly keep doing what you're doing, I love your videos how they are.
Secondly, seeing so many bad discs reminded me of the collection of amiga and St discs I had that were all good and tested ok etc. Unfortunately just before the pandemic hit my upstairs neighbour had a leak from his boiler and it was not spotted for a while, allowing the water to drain into the gap between the floors, which has a lot of sand in as a noise deadening and fire break material (they're old flats built in the 60s), which then brought the ceiling down in my storage room, where I had a large amount of items stored whilst tidying another area of the flat. All of the wet sand and ceiling material dumped on the collection of discs, tapes and magazines. Thankfully not all the magazines were soaked, but the tapes and the discs were damaged beyond use, even if I had felt I could have cleaned them I never would have trusted them to use in a drive again.
About a month ago my neighbour had a leak from his bath... Thankfully as it is a housing association property I didn't have to worry about cleaning up the mess or repairing the ceiling, but the bath leak has put my wetroom bathroom out of commission for a good few weeks yet. I will be moving fairly soon mind, so hopefully will have no further problems like that!
I like the long videos, especially the troubleshooting videos. It's like telling a story.
I love all the videos... you are doing an excellent job. One of my favorite channels.
I enjoy your videos that are 30mins or longer. Keep doing a great job helping everyone relive their youth. Awesome job
Babbages! Omg that brings back memories. Used to work at Babbages as a teen in the late 80s and Radio Shack as well. Loved getting a sneak peak at all the new games for my apple iie and iigs, the clunky Compaq portables and giant cell phones. Appreciate your content, Adrian, and the memories. Wish I still had those machines. 😊
I set these videos to to 2X, works great!
Remember to inspect and clean your disks regularly
My advice is to do what you feel is best for your channel. I personally love your content, I have no problem with the length of videos, and I love that you upload often. Cheers!
I would watch your videos regardless of length. Dont listen to hate, just do your thing! Love the videos as always!
Unless you live in a dry climate, you can count on mold accumulating on a 5 1/4 inch disk surface. Storing them in a sealed container with a few packets of Silica Gel, will prevent moisture and mold damage.
Yep! Probably a really good idea -- and indoors where it's climate controlled will help.
@@adriansdigitalbasement2 When I encounter a dirty or stuck disk, I say CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. :) On any random disk, there might be some interesting data that should be preserved. After the data has been preserved, contaminated disks should of course be discarded. For used disks in good condition, I first preserve the data and only then reformat them for my own daily use, or simply just sell them to the next owner.
Bloody Hell Adrian - stick to what you do, and what you want to do. Its good enough for 25 thousand + other people. You can't please ALL the people ALL of the time.
totally! he might not have as much subs as he deserves but he shouldn't start chasing subs by trying to please every complaint.
I’ve heard that the thing about single sided disks is that single sided drives had no standardization on which side the disk they actually used… so the manufacturers of the disks had to actually make double sided disks, error-checked on both sides, to ensure compatibility with the range of drives out there.
possibly, yeah. but not the reason. cost. two heads cost double. seems like nothing, but making the 2nd side good/same . ain’t trivial. every aspect has to be considered. at some point the market pressure and progress made advances and dual sided became the norm for the blanks, but for the drives .. I didn’t know barely anyone that had a double sided drive (1983-86 era), we were punching a hole, and test format both. most good[er] brands would be error free on both sides, but cheaper disks .. always had worse success rates. Memorex, Dysan, Fuji, Verbatim all were way better in every way. fit. finish. sound. labels. sleeves. boxes. if you cheaped out, you got crap, and regretted it. Fuji .. they made probably the best and nicest stuff for a reasonable cost in discs, and tapes .. cassette, Hi8 ... for years. I was paying 3 or 3.50 vs 5.00 per floppy (buying them in boxes of 10 at a time) in Canada anyhow. Certified Data .. were okay, but noisier when they spun, as every aspect of the materials + construction were thinner, inferior. ripping them apart, seeing the materials that kept the layers apart and could keep the odd stray bits of environmental particles off the media .. it was very apparent that you always get what you pay for. I was broke, but always got the best media I could get my hands on. saving a few cents .. and losing data just seems dumb.
Did you check each disk to perhaps see if there were any software that you could archive before formatting them?
i took an old FDD and turned it in to a disk cleaner for old disks like this.. 2 wide felt cleaners i can change out and clean. just put some cleaner on them and let it run for a few mins ..
Neat idea, I'll be keeping that in mind.
Hi! Preservationist / archivist here. For moldy disks, I remove them from the jacket, give them a alcohol bath, place them in a donor jacket, and rip the data for archival. Next stop: the trash.
Frankly, I think you're pretty brave to keep even the ones that tested good. I have found that mold spreads. While those disks might test good NOW, there's no telling if there is a patch in the inside corner of the disk, infesting the Mylar or cotton in the jacket away from the emulsion. Again, for now.
It doesn't sound like you're hurting for disks, so I suggest that you send the disks that tested OK to the bin as well. It just seems like an unnecessary risk keeping them around.
Cheers!
To be fair, all disks will be bad soon.. not just from the mold risk. While it might be risky to to use potentially contaminated disks and speed the process of other disks, i'm just wondering what the timeline is left for even the most optimally kept disks.
@Jon S. Yes! Thanks for mentioning preservation in this context.
I really like how you explain electronics and old tech I've learned alot from your videos.
Although there are many of your old videos I'd like to see, and it's hard to search for the old ones because youtube has no way of searching for old videos or should I say originals!
Kinda neat seeing the Harris logo badge, I spent many years in broadcast engineering (FM Class B) in addition to my primary work in the computing / networking / communications world. I spent many years working with Harris transmitters (great pieces of engineering in my opinion), and they are not defunct, they have rebranded their transmitter business as GatesAir.
the long videos are better! for the ones who dont like it skip the videos! i like your longer videos Adrian...keep it going i like your videos a lot
I was looking for something like FormatQM, thanks Adrian :)
Love your videos. Don't listen to the haters. You will never be able to please them. Everyone else can see how much you enjoy this content and thats what makes us come back, because we enjoy it as well. Keep up the great work and appreciate your expended energies into making all this great content.
I love these Second Channel vids! I don't know how you do it and I don't want to jinx it!
Speaking about cleaning. One of the first jobs I had we had an IBM mainframe and a DEC PDP-11 which used RL02 and RK05 disks. They had a company that would come in every once in a while to actually physically clean the disks. Take them out of the big holder packs and clean them off and put them back.
I enjoy all of your videos, the longer the better in my opinion. you have great content!
Your channel, your rules. No worries here. Your video content is always informative and helpful to other retro enthusiasts, so keep on keepin' on.
I love the length Adrian. If it’s too long they can change the channel. Patience, my friends…
Remember the Verbatim disks that were Teflon-coated? They had a tan appearance from the coating, and their ads would show the disks covered with coffee, jelly from doughnuts, and all sorts of things and they claimed that the data could still be recovered. I had a ton of those.
I have been buying boxes of VHS tapes from eBay, and some of them have been significantly moldy. A few were able to be cleaned and recovered, but the worst ones just went straight in the trash - didn't want to risk playing them. Never occurred to me that old floppy disks could suffer from similar issues!
I still have a Babbage's mouse pad for my C64. Anyway, earlier this year I started going through my C64 backup disks to check and make sure they were still good, and I found several disks with mold on them. My own fault because I had them in the basement of my old house, and there was a bit of a moisture problem at that location. Even things in the upstairs closets had mold, so it's no surprise some of the floppy disks in the basement did, too.
+1 for the longer videos here! Keep them coming :)
I'm new around these parts but I have no issue with the length of your videos, either too short or too long. 👍
I hate that floppy disks have a reputation for poor reliability. Old floppies are exceptionally reliable if they've been stored properly. I have thousands of disks from the 80's and practically all still work flawlessly. The first disk I ever bought with my own money is a green 3.5" disk for my Amiga 1000. I used the heck out of it and it's still error free. I'd trust an 80's floppy over a USB flash any day.
Well, except for the bulk packs from the 2000's. Manufacturing standards really dropped off when floppies were being phased out, so the newer the disk, the less likely it is to work. I have tons of sealed NOS disks from Micro Networks and about a third are bad out of the box.
I have 3.5 inch DD disks which were at one point drilled out and force-formatted to 1.44MB. They currently (since 1995) have Windows 3.0 on them, and last time I used them (6 months ago?) they all work properly, at least for a typical installation.
I am noticing some failure rates within the last 3-5 years, nothing alarming though.
I say i like the Longer videos better, as more topics and things to cover, i say keep both long and short videos, as there really isn't Much on any more, so keep them comming.
Brings back memories of software development in the 80s. The boss insisted on buying Inmac own brand diskettes with a lifetime warranty - the snag was the diskettes were very poor quality and didn't even have a centre reinforcing ring. The failure rate was awful. I think he sent a few back but they were obviously gambling on customers not returning enough diskettes to wipe out their profit.
I love the length (lol) of your vids, very informative and just outright great! Hello from West Australia!
Hi, they wont last forever, but kept in a jacket and in a cool dry place helps.
Stored in the plastic floppy storage bins, well there is no air circulation
To cold you get damp, to hot you get mould - you cant win
Same with 3.5's while more protected and not exposed they have a similar issue, but i find the ones with the thin cotton type washer / insulator last better because of the extra physical barrier plus there is a soft layer between the rotating magnetic disk and the hard plastic case
Back in the day i had plenty of floppies, but the last of the 5.25's were very cheap and junky, some brand new out of the box would not format or were unreliable, same with the 3.5's
In my Amiga and say 486/P1/P2 they would work, then one day read errors.
I now have the opinion that the early big brand stock while expensive were well made, the late to market cheap copies were just that - cheap and nasty
My son had a set of colored 3.5's in his school days, different color for each school class, i am sure the orange and yellow one got washed in his jeans at least once a month - true story - they were 3M's
I had this problem with Apple 2gs games I bought from the east coast, moldy disks, cleaned all but one and they all work, but these were originals of the Kings Quest Series for the GS on 3.5 disks. bummer Kq2-GS had one borked disk with too much mold after cleaning it wont read. Never had any disks that were being used here in Colorado, even with using a swamp cooler for years and years, never had mold on any disks. But I seen it on Commodore 5.25 disks from the east coast I think those came from Florida. They do clog the heads of the apple 3.5 GS drives, until all the mold is gone from the disks. what a PITA that was. disk clean disk clean, and then found the mold, used a donor drive and removed the heads to make something that could spin the disks I was trying to clean. Worked like a charm.
Likewise will mirror the comments of those who say they enjoy your videos regardless of length. Not sure why some people would whine about that - look elsewhere if the video is too long!
We love the long videos... We can't get enough of you. Haha
people can playback videos at 2x if it really bothers them. you are doing just fine Adrian.
Video length is never a problem, if I'm short on time I'll crank the speed up a bit and it's always fine.
This is a great ad for disk sleeves!
I would still clean the mold off the surface and attempt to use them. It's nothing to clean the drive head. It's another matter if it holds important data.
SpartaDOS on the Atari 8-bit can format and use disks with bad tracks. I don't have to lay down 40 tracks if there are any bad sectors after track 35 - SpartaDOS can format 35 tracks instead. ☺
Oh yeah, remember visiting a Babbages back in the day! Can't remember the city right now though..
The longer your videos the better!
For mounting that Harris badge, try auto mounting tape, used to hold the 'bumper' strips on the side of older cars.
Videos length are always good
"lifetime warranty" often means the lifetime of the product, and that is one fuzzy way of saying: "We decide when the warranty isn't applicable"
That's believable, but what is your source. Is there a federal law, or court cases that established precedent? As I said, its believable and appealing, but are you sure it isn't urban legend or false internet meme?
@@squirlmy As said, it is quite fuzzy.
It is my own experience though. When I called up on some equipment that had "Lifetime warranty" that I needed to get replaced due to some original manufacturing fault, I got the response that the product is no longer being supported, and thus its lifetime has ended.
Only 8 months old. from the date of purchase.
So if you must need a "reference". It's me then. My own experience.
@@sysghost fair enough. My experience has been that response is so random-seeming, that I don't know if "lifetime of product" really means anything more than "lifetime warranty". Occasionally I'm pleasantly surprised, I'm just trying to figure it out. I just bough a Framework laptop specifically because they aim to repair and upgrade with modular, well labelled components. But I'm still nervous how long they'll stay in business.
i would like to report this video length as A OK. please continue just as you are.
Bad floppy discs drove me insane working on my Amiga 500. I was aware of the issue, but dirt/mold/degrading wasn't visible on most of the discs. I could not work out what was wrong with my floppy drive. Random read and write errors with no logic to the problems. A proper cleaning of what looked like a clean read head with known working discs and that was it, no more issues. Sometimes I guess the bad discs aren't even visible.
These SMMCs are perfect.
When you started cutting the stuck disc open, I was like.. do we reeeaaallly want to see what is inside of that particular one? :)
i love it! super mini mail call, great name!
This video needs a counter in the corner that increments every time Adrian says mold
Memorex: "Yep, lifetime warranty means lifetime."
Adrian: "Yes!!!!"
Memorex: "We'll send a replacement out as soon as you provide an receipt for the original purchase..."
Adrian: "Well, pooh."
Hello. You are for me number one retro computer channel on youtube. love watching both of your channels.
Channel number 2 is too similar to channel number 1.
(Mini Mini Mail Cal)
should be called something else!
often they are not short.
but I love them.
But i also love to see when you are trying to repair a computer or computer related stuff.
Yeah, Babbage's. I remember when the first one opened up near my house in Lakeside Mall (suburban Detroit). My friend and I rode our bikes to the mall, and walking past it, we thought, "What's this? Oh, a software store! Cool!" Went there many, many times to buy various pieces of software.
I have a shoebox full of Atari 8bit disks which have been in the attic for 35 years. Going to take me awhile to go through them!!
There is something to be said for keeping disks in their protective sleeves so that crap can't settle and grow on the surface.
Having good sleeves helps alot beileve it or not, ive seen some disks kept in some pretty crappy enviroments but had good sleeves and are still in good shape, It also helps when tempatures dont swing alot as they were stored, In a fairly airtight container in constantly hot-ish temperatures ( 85 - 110F ish), its better than fluctuation.
A number of manufacturers used Tyvek to make the sleeves, they were almost indestructible and I don't recall ever having a failure on a disk stored in one of thoses sleeves.
Second segment name idea: Mouldy mini- mail call!
Love your work Adrian 👍. Only the whiney kids moan about long videos as they lack the attention span
@Adrian's Digital Basement ][
Adrian, there will always be whiners. You keep doing things that are interesting and if the videos end up being long, that's what happens. It's all good. Carry on good sir!!
Edit: There is a technique I once used for cleaning the surface of floppy disks. Get a can of Lemon Pledge(yup the furniture polish) and spray some into a small cup, then carefully wipe the disc surface with a very soft cloth while turning the disc in the jacket. Don't worry about excess polish on the disc, the felt on the inside of the jacket will absorb it and help keep the disc clean. This worked on A LOT of floppies BITD. I was known for being the "Disc Fixer Guy". Polish will not hurt the disc, the jacket or the drive but works a treat to clean cruddy discs, even ones with mold(Lemon Pledge kills mold). Give it a try, what do you have to loose? And I'll bet you could make a video about it.
No! It's never too long. Please ignore them. If it is too long , they can play it à 2x speed. Greetings (a French fan)
The longer the video, the better!
Michael Orange is the new Adrian Black.
I watch nearly everything on YT at double speed, so no worries on length.
I love longer format stuff, generally speaking if a video is on any sort of deep subject
Adrian, your videos are always too short they are so short I have to watch them twice.
I used to work at Babbage's back in the early 90's. A neat place to work, but not such a great place to shop. I recall selling hot new release games for 79.99 when K-Mart and other big retailers had the same games for $30 cheaper. They also let employee's take games home to "review" them, then bring them back in store, reseal and put back on the shelf as new. Not a very nice thing to do, but even worse when they were PC games that had only so many installations before the disk was "used" up.
4:20 Lemme just take the opportunity to suggest my favourite mounting tape. Gorilla Heavy Duty. They claim a bond strength of 30 lbs. I use it for dashcams in my personal car, and for an amber strobe in my work van. The strobe must weigh like 2 or 3 pounds, and a healthy application of Gorilla tape has held it on to _windshield glass_ for like 3 years now.
Harris is still in business. They merged with L3 a few years ago and formed L3Harris. The logo you have ceased to be used in 1997 or so. It was based on the logo of a Company called Radiation that they absorbed in the late 1960's. I worked there for a few decades...
I know some people that either worked for or still for for either Harris or L3. Too bad about the FAA’s NVS (NAS Voice System). Guess VSCS and VTABS will have to chug along a little while longer. Fun fact: some x86 processors (like used in those last two systems mentioned) are branded Harris.
@@nickpalance3622 Yes, I am familiar with the CMOS X86 processors that Harris manufactured. the 20 mhz 286 is a great little chip (for a 286 anyway!) Those were from the Harris' Semiconductor (later intersil) division, which was spun-off in the late 1990's by the CEO Phil Farmer who single-handedly transformed Harris from a successful Fortune 500 company into a successful Fortune 1000 company.
VSCS was a great program. I worked on some parts of it. It's hard to believe that was more than 20 years ago...
As a kid I loved the fact that MEMOREX disks came with that metallic ring
The length always leaves me satisfied.
That's what she said.
i enjoy the long videos. thank you
Adrian, I wouldn't hold my breath, but for fun, try sending a few of the failed "lifetime warranty" diskettes in and request replacements. ;) If I had your riches of diskettes & other magnetic media, I'd throw questionable media away too, but since I'm "poor" (media-wise), I'd open every diskette (sleeve?) and attempt to clean the media. Of course, the "foam stuff" inside the sleeves that is supposed to capture contaminates would be difficult to impossible to clean safely (as far as the media is concerned), so I'd probably have to swap media between known-good sleeves. I'm _really_ short on 8-inch diskettes for my RX01s & RX02s and will most likely be doing the above cleaning/inspecting on a lot of diskettes!
A few years back, before retirement, I had a POC in Management @ 3M, who made DEC's DECtapes, and asked him if 3M still had any NOS tapes hidden away in a forgotten warehouse anywhere. He actually looked through their inventory systems, but struck out. However, he was able to point me to the company that had purchased DEC's tape manufacturing. Of course, by that time, _that_ company was out of the business of making magnetic tape, but was still in business making other stuff.
Speaking of magnetic tape, when in college, a few of us were allowed into an Amperex (I think) factory see their problems with their tensioning systems for the standing loops for _huge_ tape rolls before they entered the slicing machines to make whatever width end-product tape was needed. It was interesting to see those rolls of uncut/unsliced tape, similar to rolls of paper in a paper mill, but obviously a lot shorter. It's been a _long_ time, so I have to guess they were between 4- & 8-feet (1.2-2.4 m) wide, many being sliced to the ~1/8 to 1/4-inch (3.2-6.4-mm) wide cassette tape sizes, some to the 1-inch (25.4-mm) wide Unimax size, etc.
I got to see one broadcast house that had an 8” floppy animated system, that would let you grab all 4 fields of video and let you scrub the capture, pick a field, paint on it, rebroadcast it .. ancient, but bulletproof, that was 1989 or early 90. blew my mind. never seen another working 8” drive since.
I didn't check the channel, I thought this is an LGR blurb because I saw a floppy disk and the angular font on the thumbnail and my mind went straight to LGR. I was surprised to hear Adrian instead of Clint :D
(by the way, I'm actually watching your videos at least 1.25x speed, when you are showing every side of a boring random box, I'm speeding up to 2.0x speed)
I like the longer videos!