Floppy Archive Project?

[TPA5]

Recently I got about 25 floppy disks from a friend who said he found them in his grandfathers basement, who had recently passed away. My friend asked if I could pull any data from them and save it, which I did. What I ended up finding was really interesting, there was old software, archives of short stories his grandfather had written, a few games, his grandfather even had lots of letters that he had typed up from the handwritten ones he had sent his wife when they were dating almost 60 years ago. Really awesome stuff, and it kind of bit me with a bug to keep finding these floppy disks and save the data from being destroyed. Who knows what some of those old floppies may contain! I'm interested in saving and archiving the interesting data on the disks so it doesn't get lost forever.

 

Now obviously there are a few challenges for this. Firstly, personal data. Some people may be concerned over what may be on old floppy disks, and to that I can only say that any personal data such as financial information, sensitive data, etc would be destroyed and not saved into the archive.

 

The second challenge is simply getting the floppy disks. As I would quickly run out of money to pay for the floppies, they would be more on a donation basis, I would pay the shipping to get the floppies here. If the sender was interested in the information from the floppy disks, I would make a download archive available to them, or send them a CD with the data for a very slight fee to cover the CD cost.

 

The goal of this project would to save data and make it available to everyone in a web-based archive. I'm not interested in stealing anything, making money, etc. As floppy disks physically degrade we're losing our chances to save bits of history from being lots, and that to me is a shame. I don't know if I necessarily am even able to handle a project like this, but I would be very interested in trying.

 

Which is where I would need help. Primarily it would be needing help simply with acquiring floppy disks. Whether you guys know of people that have old ones, see them at thrift shops or garage sales, or even have them in your own homes, I would need help simply acquiring the actual disks.

 

That leads me to my ultimate question: do you guys think a project like this would be worth it? Or do the Internet Archives negate this as a foolish idea? Their projects seem focused only on the actual software, as opposed to whatever other files may be stashed on floppy disks (user written programs, art, etc), whereas I'm interested in preserving whatever may be on the floppy disks. To me I think it could be a useful, cool project to save floppies before they vanish forever. Then again, it could be a very dumb idea and I simply am blind.

 

What do you guys think?

[DanBoris]

Recently I got about 25 floppy disks from a friend who said he found them in his grandfathers basement, who had recently passed away. My friend asked if I could pull any data from them and save it, which I did. What I ended up finding was really interesting, there was old software, archives of short stories his grandfather had written, a few games, his grandfather even had lots of letters that he had typed up from the handwritten ones he had sent his wife when they were dating almost 60 years ago. Really awesome stuff, and it kind of bit me with a bug to keep finding these floppy disks and save the data from being destroyed. Who knows what some of those old floppies may contain! I'm interested in saving and archiving the interesting data on the disks so it doesn't get lost forever.

 

Now obviously there are a few challenges for this. Firstly, personal data. Some people may be concerned over what may be on old floppy disks, and to that I can only say that any personal data such as financial information, sensitive data, etc would be destroyed and not saved into the archive.

 

The second challenge is simply getting the floppy disks. As I would quickly run out of money to pay for the floppies, they would be more on a donation basis, I would pay the shipping to get the floppies here. If the sender was interested in the information from the floppy disks, I would make a download archive available to them, or send them a CD with the data for a very slight fee to cover the CD cost.

 

The goal of this project would to save data and make it available to everyone in a web-based archive. I'm not interested in stealing anything, making money, etc. As floppy disks physically degrade we're losing our chances to save bits of history from being lots, and that to me is a shame. I don't know if I necessarily am even able to handle a project like this, but I would be very interested in trying.

 

Which is where I would need help. Primarily it would be needing help simply with acquiring floppy disks. Whether you guys know of people that have old ones, see them at thrift shops or garage sales, or even have them in your own homes, I would need help simply acquiring the actual disks.

 

That leads me to my ultimate question: do you guys think a project like this would be worth it? Or do the Internet Archives negate this as a foolish idea? Their projects seem focused only on the actual software, as opposed to whatever other files may be stashed on floppy disks (user written programs, art, etc), whereas I'm interested in preserving whatever may be on the floppy disks. To me I think it could be a useful, cool project to save floppies before they vanish forever. Then again, it could be a very dumb idea and I simply am blind.

 

What do you guys think?

 

I was at VCF East a couple weeks ago and saw a presentation by Jason Scott about the Internet Archive. He is actively working on the software preservation part of the Archive but also spoke about the project in general. One of the big things he emphasized was not to worry about whether you think something would be useful to the Archive or not, just give it to them and people will can worry about the value of it later. So I think the Internet Archive would be a good place for this sort of data.

[TPA5]

 

I was at VCF East a couple weeks ago and saw a presentation by Jason Scott about the Internet Archive. He is actively working on the software preservation part of the Archive but also spoke about the project in general. One of the big things he emphasized was not to worry about whether you think something would be useful to the Archive or not, just give it to them and people will can worry about the value of it later. So I think the Internet Archive would be a good place for this sort of data.

 

So they would have use for a project like this? If so it would be an interesting thing to take on I think, but I imagine my biggest challenge would be just getting my hands on the floppy disks.

[jhd]

This just seems like a really random way to collect things. I mean, you would have an assortment of everything from source code to business records to random bits of software to, undobutedly, p0rn. You have already mentioned about personal information, but copyright (and not just on software) is also an issue.

 

It would be very difficult to organize this mass of material in a way that things would be easily findable. There is also the issue that would anyone want to access this type of material. To give an example from my own collection, somewhere on disk I have copies of (almost) every paper that I wrote during my undergraduate degree. Is anyone interested in my analysis of the bauxite industry in Jamacia, ca. 1990? how about the role of minor political parties in National government in France and England (ca. 1992)? I very highly doubt it.

[TPA5]

This just seems like a really random way to collect things. I mean, you would have an assortment of everything from source code to business records to random bits of software to, undobutedly, p0rn. You have already mentioned about personal information, but copyright (and not just on software) is also an issue.

 

It would be very difficult to organize this mass of material in a way that things would be easily findable. There is also the issue that would anyone want to access this type of material. To give an example from my own collection, somewhere on disk I have copies of (almost) every paper that I wrote during my undergraduate degree. Is anyone interested in my analysis of the bauxite industry in Jamacia, ca. 1990? how about the role of minor political parties in National government in France and England (ca. 1992)? I very highly doubt it.

 

3,000 years ago no one imagined the pot sitting on the shelf in their home would be worth anything. Now archaeologists hunt for such artifacts and seek to catalog them. Or the woman who recorded thousands of news broadcasts over several decades. What people think in the present has no value, does not mean in the future it will continue to have no value.

 

I already have sketched out a few ideas for organizing data that spans many types and genres. I believe there is a system that can be worked out to make sense of the data.

 

Of course, there are issues of copyright and such. That is something that I am still considering.

 

This topic is more of a discussion than a statement of intention to pursue such a project. Naturally there would be much data that is either inappropriate to archive (porn for instance). But I think there could still be valuable data to save for future generations. You don't know for sure that something as innocuous as a school report would mean nothing 100, 500, even a thousand years from now. Who knows what the world will look like then, and who can know what data will have been preserved and studied when we're all brains floating in jars

 

Perhaps this project is better in theory than practice, and if that's the case then that is okay! It's just me musing (sort of) out loud.

[R.Cade]

I think if you are doing this for free, you will quickly get tired of it and will get taken advantage of. Actually, it's the same with getting paid for it. A "reasonable fee" for doing it will go up with your frustration level, and then will become too expensive for people to do.

 

What are you going to do about the 100's of formats the disks and files will be in?

 

I tell you this from 10 years of experience doing it.

Edited April 16, 2014 by R.Cade

[Keatah]

It's like the useless stuff coming out of the demoscenes or the tens of thousands of SID and SAP audio "clips". The material does nothing practical nor does it serve any meaningful purpose.

 

But perhaps in a post-apolcalytic world those files would be the new cryptocurrency or a whole language could be built around snippets and cuts of that material.

Edited April 16, 2014 by Keatah

[accousticguitar]

I picked up 4 floppy disks at the thrift store the other day that had all kinds of weird stuff on them, most of which I couldn't access because I don't know how to access the various file types. I could copy the info and send it to you, I think that would be a lot faster and easier than mailing the physical floppy disks.