Adventures in Backing-Up (1 Viewer)

[Steve R.]

Over the years, I've been doing computer back-ups and filing them away. This past weekend, I was doing house cleaning, which also involved backing-up (onto an external device) a computer running Ubuntu. It all worked out, but in the process: .......

I found a bunch of 3.5" disks with Windows98 back-up files (over 10 years old), still readable, but no software for doing a restore. Still have one computer with an "A" drive, to look at them. Also remember paying big $$$$ for those disks. Off to the thrift store now.

Also found some R/W CDs. Again, some over 10 years old but still readable; but no software available for doing a restore. Did a quick search, there may be some software out there; but no point in getting it since there is no restoration need. But there is a degree of aggravation in that Microsoft has changed standards and has not retained backward capability. (Not to mention being referred to dead webpages) As with the floppy drive, spent big $$ buying them when this technology was new. Well at least the R/W CDs are reusable.

So, I tried the R/W CDs as the back-up media for the Ubuntu computer. Turns out the CDs capacity was too small!! As I was tossing the 3.5" disks out, I was reminded how our storage needs grow and grow. Can't even fit an MS Word program on a floppy drive now.

Technically, the Ubuntu back-up program should have "spanned" the CDs, but I guess there was a bug in the program. I was able to resolve that issue by backing up the files across the home network onto a "storage" hard drive that I have. Furthermore, the Ubuntu backup used "tar", so I won't be faced with Microsoft changing standards again. In fact, for backing up my Windows file, I just copy them to the "storage" drive to avoid proprietary nightmares.

Well, terabit hard drives are now available for around $100, so I anticipate getting one soon as the back-up media to replace my existing storage hard drive. To think, I probably spent over $200 getting floppies and R/W CDs!!!!

 

[Catalina]

Reminds me of the day I had a Commodore 128 with a floppy drive (most users were still dealing with tapes). A pack of 10 single sided 160K floppies was about $40 I believe. That was in 1985, ancient history.

 

[Isskint]

My C64, I nagged my parents non stop for about a month to get me the Winchester Dual floppy drives. Eventually the gave in and bought them. I used them a couple of times and that was it. That was c.1983 - cost c. £150

Ah memories



@Steve R.

1TB drives in the UK for £65 !!

 

[Catalina]

A while ago I bought at book at a thrift store called: "Computers, Tools for an Information Age", published in 1987.
Reading it makes me realize once more how far we have come in just 25 years.

There is a picture in it of a student carrying his MacIntosh in a MackPack.
That pack looks to be big enough to carry camping supplies for a two weeks. And given the fact that he is leaning
to keep his balance shows that thing must have been very heavy as well.

It's very amusing reading and viewing material.

Catalina

 

[Brianwarnock]

Reminds me of the day I had a Commodore 128 with a floppy drive (most users were still dealing with tapes). A pack of 10 single sided 160K floppies was about $40 I believe. That was in 1985, ancient history.

LOL 1985 ancient history, I suppose everything is relative, I remember having my first program punched onto 80 column cards back in 1962.

In the late 60s the company moved to disks and tapes and looking forward decided to buy 512k rather than IBM's recommended 256k on the 360 model 50
, yep how times have changed.

Brian

 

[Galaxiom]

It is rather disingenuous to blame Microsoft for not maintaining backwards compatibility. The age of those backups would surely suggest that they were well obsolete by now. If those files mattered you would have carried them forward into new systems that could store your old files in a teen-weeny part of your hard drive and back them up in your new regime.

Moreover, had you kept the backup software you used on Win95 or even DOS there is a very good chance it would still run on your Windows7 system (even if it did require XP mode).

Good old XCOPY still works to this day.

Meanwhile Apple doesn't even know the meaning of the term, "backwards compatible". They have long been more interested in the principle of "Pay It Again Sam". My wife worked at a school where the moved to Windows in protest at all of their programs becoming obsolete on their Apple systems.

My first floppies were the new Double sided, Double Density 720K 3.5 inch type. Hell they even had a plastic case instead of cardboard. They were $4 each in 1989. When the 1440 drives came out they were able to write the 720s but they did so with half the track width making them terribly unreliable.

But I began in computers in 1977 with "marksense" cards. They were a step up from the punch cards except when a fly crapped on the card and it read the wrong character. I programmed in FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslator). Everything was in upper case back then.

It ran on a Digital PDP11 mainframe with a whopping Megabyte of RAM that supported the whole campus.

The printer was the most incredible part of the system. From what I remember it was a 128 character wide by nine pin per character dot matrix that printed a whole line at a time. The noise was phenomenal.

 

[Galaxiom]

I recall when writeable CDs came out. They were considered the most expensive drink coasters available.

 

[Vassago]

I first learned to program in basic on a TRS-80 when I was in elementary school because my Mom received one for her schooling. I wrote my first program in basic completely from scratch. It was a simple math guessing game. I still felt proud of myself and it helped me later in life with vba and such.

I also still have a C-64 in mint condition with floppy drive attachment and a large stack of floppy disk games. I might need to break it back out one day just to drool over the nostalgia of it all.

 

[Fifty2One]

I remember an old ad I kept for ages, the advert prompted me to buy a 640mb hard drive because "it was more memory that you would ever need" (paraphrased but something along those lines).
I recently sold most of my ancient relics to a young man who is into the "old old stuff". It included my Windows 3.11, Lotus, WordPerfect... cant remember all the other stuff. He was thrilled because everything was in the original boxes... with the original receipts...

 

[mdlueck]

The hot Summer night when I put my first computer together back in the mid 80's... I think the command that "did it" was:

debug g=c800:5

Enter...

And a big huge BANG!!!! and all of the lights went out!!!

The ancient transformer out front blew under load of everyone running their A/C's. That was it for progress on the first computer that evening.

 

[Steve R.]

I also still have a C-64 in mint condition with floppy drive attachment and a large stack of floppy disk games. I might need to break it back out one day just to drool over the nostalgia of it all.

I had an Apple IIe, that was in mint condition when I gave it away. Periodically, I wonder how much it would fetch now. I also have a 35mm Film (if you recall what film is) camera. Only problem is that I do not use it enough to keep it lubricated. Some things break down if not used regularly.

I recently sold most of my ancient relics to a young man who is into the "old old stuff". It included my Windows 3.11, Lotus, WordPerfect... cant remember all the other stuff. He was thrilled because everything was in the original boxes... with the original receipts...

Always amazes me how there seems to be a group of people collecting obscure stuff. Me, I was a big collector of used SF paperbacks. But they have gotten too expensive now and many of the stores have disappeared over the years.

 

[Vassago]

Always amazes me how there seems to be a group of people collecting obscure stuff. Me, I was a big collector of used SF paperbacks. But they have gotten too expensive now and many of the stores have disappeared over the years.

I had to snatch it up. A friend of mine was moving and I was helping him move. He asked me if I wanted it. Obviously!

I also have an old Panasonic 3-DO and an old Nintendo virtual boy (the headache and vertigo inducing 3D system that came out in the 90s.) I'm sure I have much more in the old electronics file, but I'd have to look. lol

 

[Fifty2One]

I took a bunch of old paperbacks to the community center garage sale, they take 20% of sales and what does not sell can be donated to charity, we usually inform them to go ahead as well as keep all the monies. All the funds go to charity and no the church before anyone thinks "HEY"...
How things become so valuable I will never know... just recently I was looking on eBay and saw some incredible prices of baseball cards, including some of the cards of players who were not so pupular in the day and ended up being simulated motors by being clothes pegged into bicycle spokes...

Just to get back almost to topic, I have quite a collection of AOL CDs, they are great in the vegetable garden, suspend them on strings and the flashing reflection of the sun chases off a lot of birds who would usually stop for a snack.

I had an Apple IIe, that was in mint condition when I gave it away. Periodically, I wonder how much it would fetch now. I also have a 35mm Film (if you recall what film is) camera. Only problem is that I do not use it enough to keep it lubricated. Some things break down if not used regularly.

Always amazes me how there seems to be a group of people collecting obscure stuff. Me, I was a big collector of used SF paperbacks. But they have gotten too expensive now and many of the stores have disappeared over the years.

 

[Vassago]

Just to get back almost to topic, I have quite a collection of AOL CDs, they are great in the vegetable garden, suspend them on strings and the flashing reflection of the sun chases off a lot of birds who would usually stop for a snack.

I actually have an old beta of an old version of AOL from when I was an employee there. lol

I've seen this tactic done in riverside restaurants, but it doesn't seem to work on the bigger birds such as crows and seagulls. They ignore the cds entirely.