The 2025 Operating System Thread

[stj]

maybe recap the analog section of the drive

[eccerr0r]

no evidence pointing whether it's the disks or it's the computer... the disks look a little funky...

[Agent24]

no evidence pointing whether it's the disks or it's the computer... the disks look a little funky...

Moldy? Happens a lot to floppies and tapes

[eccerr0r]

quite possible. Don't know. Weird that it would damage the mag layer enough to make it unable to be recordable again...

[eccerr0r]

Also wtf. People say you can clean mold off floppy disks? And be readable once more? Seems a bit unbelievable IMHO.

[TurcoLoco]

Currently, have only one desktop running Windows 10 Pro. Of all the 64-bit Windows flavors, 10 is hands down my favorite but among the 32-bit ones, Windows XP was my fav.
I am and have always been a Windows user, mainly due to being a gamer.
I have been goofing around with GNU-Linux almost as long as I have with Windows but for the better part of the last 25 years of using Linux, I used different versions on VMs.
I think I only installed on an actual computer, and for a very brief time, 5 different versions; eLinux, Suse, LinuxMint, Kali and Zorin during those 25 years and spent probably less than 10 hours total playing around with them all.

For work, I had to learn just enough to support Mac OS users over the years but I really dislike anything Apple! 😬

[Agent24]

Also wtf. People say you can clean mold off floppy disks? And be readable once more? Seems a bit unbelievable IMHO.

Yes, I've done it before, to recover files off old disks, but I wouldn't trust the disk afterwards, the material will be damaged to some extent by the mold, it's not reliable after that.

[eccerr0r]

The number of floppy disks in the world is going down. I wonder if they'll ever become rare enough to have to make them like they do vacuum tubes... then again floppy emulators are a thing, though vacuum tube emulators are not hot....in more ways than one.

[stj]

some vac tubes have been replaced with good results.
shango did some video's showing them - but they arent cheap

[eccerr0r]

well real vacuum tubes are real vacuum tubes, vacuum tube emulators (i.e. using transistors to fake a vacuum tube so you lose vacuum tube properties) "aren't hot"...

[stj]

you would be surprised about how well they blend in with the other real valves and work

[eccerr0r]

TBH I don't even care about the so-called "tube sound" ... IMHO since semiconductors are more linear, they have less THD and thus better...

But making a floppy drive emulator really isn't the same thing, might well just emulate the whole machine...