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Retrieving Data From Old Amstrad Floppies?
Jeppe Utzon writes "Back in 1987, when I was a teenager in high school still, I spent most evenings, nights and weekends writing small programs in BASIC on my Amstrad CPC 6128. Some of these programs were simple games, some drew graphics, some could help me with math or train me in French — and most were utterly pointless. But I never had as much satisfying fun as when writing those programs — even if no one in my family understood any of it when I proudly displayed the fruits of three sleepless nights of labor. Now, 20 years later, I still have a sealed pack of about 15 disks with all my work on them (along with a few of my favorite games) and I was wondering if it was possible to get the data out somehow so that I could run it in emulation on my Mac. I know of the emulators, but have no clue what would be needed to extract the data — or if it is even extractable after all these years. I realize the chances of the data still being intact are quite low, but I'd like to give it a shot. So if anyone has any pointers it would be greatly appreciated."
A large hurdle will be finding a drive to read the Amstrad disks at all.
Otherwise you're pretty boned.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
In addition to the usual hapless corporate customers needing to restore 10 year old backup tapes at the request of lawyers, forensic data recoverers can now market to nostalgic boomers looking to relive their C64 and Sinclair ZX-80 experiences.
There is big money here - look at the motorcycle industry, which used to be pitched to outlaws, kids, and the outdoorsy, and is now aiming for the Viagra and $100-bottle-of-wine crowd.
I still have a huge library of Fortran code on 1/2" tape. If I ever want to see that code again will somebody please kill me.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Yes, because VMWare will totally help you run a system that originally ran on a Z80, and used utterly non-standard disks which no other drive will accept.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
Well VMware is pretty damn awesome.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Amstrad issued two RS-232-C D25 serial interfaces, attached to the expansion connector at the rear of the machine, with a through-connector for the CPC464 disk drive or other peripherals. The original interface came with a "Book of Spells" for facilitating data transfer between other systems using a proprietary protocol in the device's own ROM, as well as terminal software to connect to British Telecom's Prestel service. A separate version of the ROM was created for the U.S. market due to the use of the commands "SUCK" and "BLOW", which were considered unacceptable there. Use a serial line to copy the data. I'm sure that it wouldn't be too hard if you can just get a machine that works.
Sprinkle the disks with iron filings and scan them on a flatbed scanner. Then write a new and absolutely pointless program to retrieve the data from the scans.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Three FOOT floppy? Hate to to see it when it's not floppy.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Seriously, if you want to actually access that info move it off now and onto newer medium. That whole stack could go on a thumbdrive or CD and be safe for the next 10 years or so.
LAN party at noon, then pubcrawling to midnight engaging the opposite sex?
technical writing / development
I figured they'd call him "Tripod".
Ultra-ATA? Ha ha... you are so young. IDE didn't even exist yet when the 5 1/4" floppy first appeared. Those were the days of 5 MB hard disk with ST-506 interfaces, 1-5 MHz CPUs, and 40-column monochrome displays. Now get off my lawn!
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
/me passes his working RLL controller over to grampa.
Layne
i sense a new slashdot meme
Best I ever did was:
Linux on the base hardware
Windows on VMWare
Winuae Amiga emulator on Windows
MAME arcade emulator on Amiga
Dig Dug on MAME
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Exactly, the $285 is much cheaper. ;)
At the risk of being labeled troll/flamebait I say to you
Was she hot or something? That's the only excuse I can think of worth feeling that generous.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
I have a card reader in my basement.
I see your 'get of my lawn' and raise you a 'And turn down that noise you call music'!
This has been a test. If this had been an actual Sig, you would have been amused.