Hi Diane,
Unfortunately, technology moved faster than I could keep up. I still have information I need on my original quasi-PC purchased in 1985. In order to print a copy, I have to use the old computer to print the data on a dot matrix printer. It only uses 5 1/4 inch floppies. My next newer computer used both 5 1/4 and 3 1/2 inch floppies and I was able to transfer some data to 3 1/2 inch floppies. That computer broke down before I could get everything I needed onto the 3 1/2 inch floppies. And now I can't even get 5 1/4 inch floppies, so the data stays where it is. The files on 3 1/2 inch floppies can be input on a computer with Windows 98 or by an external floppy drive to ones with Windows XP. I have had problems transferring files onto Windows Vista. The data on my PC with XP was transferred to an external hard drive when that mother board went down, but some files got lost in the shuffle to a new PC with Vista. I wish they wouldn't keep changing everything so often.
Dorothy Willott
I have masses of outdated storage items - remember way back when
floppies were the size of a large pizza and the disk drive could serve
as a table? And then floppies the size of a saucer, and then no-
longer-floppy and smaller still? Zip disks? And now flash drives?
If you didn't keep moving your data along as each new method came
along, then you lost your data.
-----Original Message-----
From: Diane Whitehead <voltaire@islandnet.
com>
To: iris-species@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Fri, Jan 8, 2010 12:22 pm
Subject: Re: [iris-species] digital SIGNA bulletin?
But books from hundreds of years ago are still readable.
I have masses of outdated storage items - remember way back when
floppies were the size of a large pizza and the disk drive could serve
as a table? And then floppies the size of a saucer, and then no-
longer-floppy and smaller still? Zip disks? And now flash drives?
If you didn't keep moving your data along as each new method came
along, then you lost your data.
Diane
On 8-Jan-10, at 11:46 AM, Sean A. Zera wrote:
> if the archives could be
> digitized, it would reduce the amount of space 40 years of bulletins
> takes up from a whole shelf to a single USB flash drive.
>
> Sean Z
>
