I still have this stuff, particularly the 1.4mb 3" numbers. 8" 360K floppies, possibly, as I have used tech since 1975 so being familiar with these entities is a no brainer. Having
Future Nostalgia as an online resource to get data out of these gems is a godsend without question. :)
Some of the world's most treasured documents can be found deep in the archives of Cambridge University Library. There are letters from Sir Isaac Newton, notebooks belonging to Charles Darwin, rare Islamic texts and the Nash Papyrus – fragments of a sheet from 200BC containing the Ten Commandments written in Hebrew.
These rare, and often unique, manuscripts are safely stored in climate-controlled environments while staff tenderly care for them to prevent the delicate pages from crumbling and ink from flaking away.
But when the library received 113 boxes of papers and mementoes from the office of physicist Stephen Hawking, it found itself with an unusual challenge. Tucked alongside the letters, photographs and thousands of pages relating to Hawking's work on theoretical physics, were items now not commonly seen in modern offices – floppy disks.
They were the result of Hawking's early adoption of the personal computer, which he was able to use despite having a form of motor neurone disease known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, thanks to modifications and software. Locked inside these disks could be all kinds of forgotten information or previously unknown insights into the scientists' life. The archivists' minds boggled.
These disks are now part of a project at Cambridge University Library to rescue hidden knowledge trapped on floppy disks. The Future Nostalgia project reflects a larger trend in the information flooding into archives and libraries around the world.
"Most of the donations we get are from people who are either retiring or passing away," explains Leontien Talboom, a member of the library's digital preservation team who is leading the project. "That means we're seeing more and more things from the era of personal computing."
Future Nostalgia reminds me of The Wayback Machine, the archive for the net. :)
I've used Wayback so many times to find stuff I thought was gone forever.
Data in floppies thought lost falls into this category without question. :)
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