I’m happy to report that the disks were handed to the guards at Mercuryvapour Towers, and not just thrown over the portcullis. I now have in my possession 100 floppy disks, Woohoo!
I rushed hurriedly upstairs, with my precious cargo under my arms. I ripped the cellophane off, to be confronted with a nice neat cardboard box with “MISC BACKUPS” written on the side. No signs of mould / damp. No smell like they’d been rotting in a pool of water for 20 years. Things were looking promising
The sellotape holding the box shut looked like it had been there for a long time. This was a good sign. Someone had clearly backed these disks up, then filed them away. I guess it meant that they hadn’t been touched, and had data on them.
I was even more impressed when I opened the box. 10 neat boxes of 3.5 floppies. All of the same make. I was even more impressed when I opened the disk, and found that each disk had a protective sleeve on them too! I couldn’t wait to try them. Each box even had a little label on them saying what was in there…
On goes the PC. The Greaseweazle lets out a little squeak as I stuck the USB cable up its grundle. We were good to go.
Firstly, just a random disk. Just to make sure it was all going to be working. Everything sounded perfect. Not a single unexpected noise from the drive. These disks were perfect. time to fling it into hxc and take a look what’s on them…
Waaaaaait, what? Why does that disk look like it’s only formatted on one side? Was the drive dead? I stuck in my test disk, and it came back fine. Both sides read correctly. I’d noticed that it had actually recognised the disk as a 360K formatted disk. I didn’t even know this type of thing existed. One thing had became very, very clear… These disks waren’t going to be reading in my Amiga emulator any time soon.
I read a couple more. These came back as 720K disks, so I checked the files. They might still be of use if they had PC compatible stuff on them…
***** EASY TEXT v 1.23 from zzSoft *****
This version of EASY TEXT is suitable for high res AND medium res
ATARI ST'S.
Oh, well isn’t that just effing marvellous. I now have a nice box of 100 disks that are only useable in a computer I have absolutely no interest in owning or emulating. Well, there’s my night’s entertainment (and £30) down the bloody kermit. I suppose I could still image them and stick them somewhere. Don’t know what I’ll do with them after that.
So, this post is a lot shorter (and infinitely more disappointing) than what I was anticipating. Still, some you win…
FOR SALE: APPROX 100 ATARI ST DISKS…. anyone? £31?
That’s a shame! I was looking forward to the next part. Can you at least re-use the discs on a real amiga?
I could do, but my Amiga is permanently out of action. At least the A1200 is, anyway. I do have the A600, but to be honest I have enough blank disks to be going on with anyway, so I don’t need a hundred more. Plus, I can’t remember the last time any of my Amigas were powered on. 2006, maybe?
I’d have hoped to have got some special disks that would have content worth looking at. Obscure games, long forgotten about… someone’s “Deluxe Paint” collection, that type of thing. Don’t know if I’ll bother ordering more from another seller., but I also don’t want ol’ Greasy to be sat in a drawer, forgotten about forever more. We’ll see.