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Retrieving Data From Old Amstrad Floppies?
Posted by
timothy
on Thu May 08, 2008 11:31 AM
from the but-I-thought-you-said-it-was-obscure dept.
from the but-I-thought-you-said-it-was-obscure dept.
Jeppe Utzon writes "Back in 1987, when I was a teenager in high school still, I spent most evenings, nights and weekends writing small programs in BASIC on my Amstrad CPC 6128. Some of these programs were simple games, some drew graphics, some could help me with math or train me in French — and most were utterly pointless. But I never had as much satisfying fun as when writing those programs — even if no one in my family understood any of it when I proudly displayed the fruits of three sleepless nights of labor. Now, 20 years later, I still have a sealed pack of about 15 disks with all my work on them (along with a few of my favorite games) and I was wondering if it was possible to get the data out somehow so that I could run it in emulation on my Mac. I know of the emulators, but have no clue what would be needed to extract the data — or if it is even extractable after all these years. I realize the chances of the data still being intact are quite low, but I'd like to give it a shot. So if anyone has any pointers it would be greatly appreciated."
A large hurdle will be finding a drive to read the Amstrad disks at all.
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Agreed on finding a drive (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Agreed on finding a drive (Score:4, Insightful)
If bit-rot doesn't do you in first.
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Re:Agreed on finding a drive (Score:4, Interesting)
then sold my 800, two drives and a bunch of other stuff. I'm now $100 richer, but I have to admit feeling a bit of seller's remorse. A part of me has died.
But, the point is (damn, I miss that 800 now. Why'd I do it?) *cough* magnetic media seems to be lasting much longer than was expected.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
IBM-compatibles used a special floppy interface - the controller is on the motherboard.
And, if a modern PC has the hardware to drive a 3.5" floppy, it can drive a 5.25" floppy. So, yes.
But, the IBM-compatible floppy controller might not be able to handle these Amstrad disks.
Re:Agreed on finding a drive (Score:5, Informative)
If that's a problem, get one of these controllers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CatWeasel [wikipedia.org]. Unless they have a driver already, you'll need to know how to write a program to decode data, bit by bit, but these controllers will read and write nearly anything. I have a MK3, and I was able to get it to read the data on old Ohio Scientific disks.
Now if I could just find a working 8" disk drive...
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Re:Agreed on finding a drive (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Agreed on finding a drive (Score:4, Funny)
I have a card reader [userfriendly.org] in my basement.
I see your 'get of my lawn' and raise you a 'And turn down that noise you call music'!
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Re:Agreed on finding a drive (Score:4, Insightful)
Have you ever tried getting a CD-ROM drive to work using a SB16 card's interface along with the crappy DOS drivers from Creative? Ever had fun trying to find an IRQ to use for a new ISA-card controller and finding that none was available? Or how about trying to have more than one harddisk in one computer, it was a nightmare with MFM (or RLL even).
Thank god we have IDE/ATA!
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Find an old system (Score:3, Funny)
Serial port adaptor
Amstrad issued two RS-232-C D25 serial interfaces, attached to the expansion connector at the rear of the machine, with a through-connector for the CPC464 disk drive or other peripherals. The original interface came with a "Book of Spells" for facilitating data transfer between other systems using a proprietary protocol in the device's own ROM, as well as terminal software to connect to British Telecom's Prestel service. A separate version of the ROM was created for the U.S. market due to the use of the commands "SUCK" and "BLOW", which were considered unacceptable there.
Use a serial line to copy the data. I'm sure that it wouldn't be too hard if you can just get a machine that works.
Re:Find an old system (Score:5, Funny)
Uh, didn't he say they were written in BASIC?
(=I kid. Really. Uh huh.=)
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Re:Agreed on finding a drive (Score:5, Informative)
This link http://www.fvempel.nl/3pc.html [fvempel.nl] has some good details on how to splice it onto a PC floppy cable. There are also loads of good links on his page for extracting the data.
The guys on http://www.cpczone.net/ [cpczone.net] were really helpful.
Good luck, you will need it!
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Re:Agreed on finding a drive (Score:4, Informative)
$285.14? [ebay.com]
Seems a bit pricey to me but your nostalgic millage may vary.
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Re:Agreed on finding a drive (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Agreed on finding a drive (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Agreed on finding a drive (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.cpcwiki.com/index.php/3%C2%BD%22_%26_5%C2%BC%22_Disk_Drives [cpcwiki.com]
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"Hidden standards" in old 80's home computers. (Score:4, Interesting)
Yup--Amstrad was one of the makers of oddball "semi-standard" PCs. It had standard serial ports that others like Atari and Commodore seemed averse to using on their 8-bit home computer lines (probably because they wanted to make it a hassle to use third-party peripherals--basically buy aour stuff, or buy an overpriced adapter to plug in standard stuff).
Amstrad CPCs not only had the same floppy controller and interface as the IBM PC, it also used the same 6845 video display processor as well (which is why it had CGA-like graphics, and the added 16-colour low-res mode like the Tandy 1000 series and PCJr). Sound was identical to the MSX-based computers. They basically cherry-picked here and there.
Too bad the use of a non-standard form factor drive with the standard connector had to happen though. What's this guy going to do with the old discs now? Fortunately for myself, I purchased a floppy drive for my Coleco ADAM the first opportunity I could because the modified cassette tapes were not all that reliable and they were hard to find. As a result all my old stuff ended up on floppies.
The Coleco floppy drive had a non-standard ADAMNet interface (ADAMNet worked just like USB but slower--you could plug the keyboard into the back of the disk drive, or the front "keyboard" port, or swap the floppy and keyboard wires and the damn thing would work). More importantly though, the disks were normal 5.25" floppies FORMATTED TO A STANDARD 160KB FORMAT READABLE ON IBM PCs. Eighteen years after we got the ADAM I was able to scrounge up a leftover 5.25" floppy drive, put it in my Linux box and use DD to make images of the floppies that work perfect with emulators!
Interestingly Atari kind of migrated towards less-proprietary architecture with its ST line too--ST computers had standard serial and parallel ports, and it used 3.5" floppies with a variant of FAT formatting that was readable on IBM PC drives.
I was laughed at by Commodore and Apple fans for going with "toy" Coleco and Atari computers, but in a sense I got the last laugh, because I ended up with computers that had amongst the most easily recoverable media of all those computers of that era. So why did I choose the Coleco and Atari ST computers back then? Becasue both could be easily made to run a variant of CP/M, including popular apps like Wordstar.
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Simplest way... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Agreed on finding a drive (Score:4, Interesting)
A better solution:
Give the floppies to someone else. Then, sue them for copyright infringement. In the filing, insist that all the infringed-upon data is stored on the floppies-- then demand the courts pay to have the evidence recovered...
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Company that advertises this service (Score:5, Informative)
I found this [demon.co.uk] company that offers conversions @ £5 a disk.
This isn't the only company, but a google will find the others.
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Re:Agreed on finding a drive (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.halted.com/ [halted.com]
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NOT true. My diskettes are completely readable. (Score:5, Informative)
"AT&T(R) Safari Computer
------
If you have an AT&T Safari computer, you cannot maintain two versions of Windows on your system. You must upgrade over your previous version of Windows, if you have one. If you set up Windows for Workgroups version 3.11 in its own directory, it will not use the special drivers required to run on the computer."
You said, "The plastic carrier has become brittle..." That kind of plastic is a hazard to the environment, because it doesn't break down.
"... the magnetic media has flaked off..." The substrate is Mylar. The glue is intensely adherent.
' "the bits on the media itself have "floated" ' Not so, I think I can install Windows for Workgroups again any time I like.
I ran chkdsk a:
Parent
Find somebody with a working Amstrad. (Score:5, Funny)
Reading 26 year old disks (Score:5, Informative)
I used disk2fdi for this. You can get this at: http://www.oldskool.org/disk2fdi
I see a market here (Score:5, Funny)
There is big money here - look at the motorcycle industry, which used to be pitched to outlaws, kids, and the outdoorsy, and is now aiming for the Viagra and $100-bottle-of-wine crowd.
I still have a huge library of Fortran code on 1/2" tape. If I ever want to see that code again will somebody please kill me.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Hardware is easy to find (Score:5, Informative)
Just search ebay for an Amstrad CPC6128 or a Sinclair Spectrum +3 or an Amstrad PCW. There are still plenty of them around. (I have a Spectrum +3 with a working 3 inch Amstrad floppy drive as it happens, the floppy drive is quite handy for restoring the firmware on the Spectrum ethernet card I'm developing if I blow some non-functional code onto the flash ROM and can't reprogram it any more over ethernet). It would be best to get a CPC6128 - if you get a Spectrum +3 or a PCW you may have to write some low-level software to read CPC formatted discs.
The CPC, if I remember right, has an RS232 port. Write a short BASIC program to send your data to a PC via RS232.
Incidentally, the most common fault on the 3 inch Amstrad drives is a broken belt - you can buy new ones from rwap software: http://www.rwapsoftware.co.uk/ [rwapsoftware.co.uk] - while this firm caters for the Spectrum, since the later models were built by Amstrad with the 3in drive, they carry parts for 3in drives.
The other good news is most floppies seem to hold up well - while the 3in discs don't seem to do as well as 5.25 in discs (I have only one faulty disc in many 20+ year old ones for my BBC micro, but rather more faulty 3in discs - all pre-recorded game discs) - so I suspect your discs will all read fine.
Re:Hardware is easy to find (Score:4, Interesting)
It's easy to find old Amstrad HW in Europe anyway.
Parent
Not that hard to find a lot of info (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/amstrad/ [obsoleteco...museum.org]
Google is your friend... (Score:5, Informative)
Try:
http://computer-convert.com/index.htm [computer-convert.com]
http://www.vintagetech.com/?section=conversion [vintagetech.com] (they also do 7-track tape, paper tape and punch cards!)
Google: http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=media+conversion+floppy+tape+&src=IE-SearchBox [live.com]
However, you may find looking on ebay is cheaper and more fun.
Re:Google is your friend... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Jasmin drive (Score:4, Interesting)
There is tools in cpm+ to use 800k floppy or transfer files etc. And it uses the same encoding (MFM?) on Amstrad or PC so on the CPC you can read and write PC floppy. PC use 40 tracks by default and Amstrad use 80 tracks for the 800k floppy iirc. Anyway, it works, try to find the schematic to hook a 3 1/2 or 5 1/4 drive on an Amstrad.
Iron filings and a scanner (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Data recovery services (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Data recovery services (Score:4, Informative)
I recently did just this with all my old 5 1/4" disks. I had about 200 disks full of old games, programs, and some Basic work I did. The whole "514" project took me an afternoon, and 34.6MB of space. I was surprised about how many of the disks were still viable after 10-15 years.
Except for one particular brand name of disks. I don't recall which one-- but let me tell you this: Of the 200 disks, there were maybe 4 I really, really wanted to recover. The ones that had some Basic programs and animations I had done. And wouldn't you know, the only three that were corrupt were from that pool of four.
I still have them, just in case. But a cursory glance at data recovery places let me know that they'd charge anywhere from $75-$300 per disk. If they don't get it right (or if they're a crappy place as screw up the procedure) the data is for-sure gone forever.
Parent
Classic Computing mailing list (Score:4, Insightful)
A Quick Google Search Turned Up This (Score:5, Informative)
I assume we are talking about the 3" disks (Score:5, Informative)
In my case we had an Amstrad PCW8256 in full working order, so that covered reading the disks. The Locolink software is hard to come by but I picked up a copy on E-Bay. It's designed for transferring and converting Locoscript [locoscript.com] files but will transfer other files as well just fine. It only works with Window 98 on the PC side though.
If you don't have an actual working Amstrad then your best bet is probably finding a hacked-up 3" drive that you can connect to a PC. You might be more likely to be able to purchase the whole computer.
If you're in the UK there are services that will transfer the files for you for 10GBP a disk. Here's a list [diskdoctor.co.uk] of them. In the US, try here [ukonline.co.uk].
Good luck!
The advantages of punched paper tape (Score:5, Interesting)
When I was in grad school, there was some data stored on punched paper tape, stored fan-folded. The tape had dried out and cracked where the folds were. (The cracks would be in the middle of a byte, especially a high one, as they would have more holes punched in them.) They wanted to save the data, so they hired a under-grad to spend all summer sending the tape through a reader, one 4 foot section at a time, figure out what the byte was where the crack was, type that in, and then proceed to the next 4 foot section. I still think that that must have been the worst IT job ever.
Google is your friend (Score:4, Informative)
He seems to have a pretty good handle on all the conversion problems, too. His page is a fun read just for that.
ddrescue and Foremost is a possible combo for you (Score:4, Informative)
Once you have a disk image, Foremost [sourceforge.net] can extract files from it. It is also open source and can be compiled and run on many different platforms and doesn't care about the filesystem on the disk image (or original disk). It searches for files based on header information. If need be, you can edit what header information it looks for. Since your BASIC source code is, presumably, ASCII text files, it shouldn't be a problem.
Re:VMware (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:VMware (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:VMware (Score:4, Funny)
Linux on the base hardware
Windows on VMWare
Winuae Amiga emulator on Windows
MAME arcade emulator on Amiga
Dig Dug on MAME
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Floppy-wise, they used a non-standard 3" drive, which may have been made by Shugart. That's going to be the real hurdle.
My own Amstrad lasted me through to my college years, when I used to use it to solve physics problems. My favorite was getting it to calculate anomalous Zeeman effect splitting profiles.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And, all VMware does is virtualization (not emulation) of an x86 PC.
This guy needs to find a working Amstrad that can read his disks, and then use it to create disk images. I don't know if there's a utility to automatically do that for the Amstrads, though. (For Apple IIs, it's stupid easy to make disk images, thanks to ADTPro [sf.net] and cheap seri
Re:you missed the point. (Score:5, Funny)
Three FOOT floppy? Hate to to see it when it's not floppy.
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Re:Once the hurdle of finding a drive is cleared.. (Score:3, Informative)
If a floppy is properly stored and kept indoors, it should still be readable after all that time. I have some TRS-80 floppies from the early '80s which read just fine a couple of years ago with a Catweasel board. There were some read errors, but those were probably there back in the day. So 25 years is certainly not unreasonable.
But it's still not too hard to find 5 1/4" floppy drives in relatively good condition. Good luck finding an Amstrad drive. Is there even an Amstrad users group in the US?
Proposed solution (Score:3, Funny)