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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.
"I have a 5 1/4 floppy drive and some disks set aside for the exact same reason.....someday I'll want that info and then I'll be all set."
If bit-rot doesn't do you in first.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Just sign up for one of these (I suggest cctalk) and ask around. Maybe somebody can convert them for you, maybe somebody else has an entire Amstrad system that they'll let you have cheap.
Klingon programs don't timeshare, they battle for supremacy.
What did 5 1/4 drives connect with? ATA/33? Would you even be able to connect a flopppy from a 386 to a modern PC?
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Try emailing the people who write those emulators you mention.
No sig today...
and if you try, you'll ruin your fond memories. I've done it a few times and have been thoroughly disappointed. Like any self-respecting computer geek I frequented the bulletin boards before Al Gore invented the Internet. I'd play co-op text adventure games with friends and be online for the majority of my waking time. I had a chance to buy one of the BBS' I would play on and I tried to get some old friends to get back with me so we could relish in the glory days. It was awkward, not that much fun, and really ruined my memories of the fun I'd had. Just enjoy your fond memories and don't try to recreate the situation/atmosphere/fun you had as a younger person. You'll be disappointed.
Not to be silly but why don't you retrieve that data now, and then some day when you might want it you already have done the hard part of transferring it to a new system.
Anything i wanted to keep off of my zip drive and magento optical drives i transferred to my hard drive a long time ago. I have accessed all my 3.5 floppies and copied that data as well.
it got put onto an external HD, and copied onto dvd's.
When i want my data it is already in accessible storage.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Actually, none of the Amstrad CPC464, CPC664 and CPC6128 had serial ports anyway. A serial interface was an optional extra that plugged into the back.
Have you ever tried getting a CD-ROM drive to work using a SB16 card's interface along with the crappy DOS drivers from Creative? Ever had fun trying to find an IRQ to use for a new ISA-card controller and finding that none was available? Or how about trying to have more than one harddisk in one computer, it was a nightmare with MFM (or RLL even).
Thank god we have IDE/ATA!
"You heard the man, Tubbs.. get undressed."