@matigo Nicer still was coming home to find a really nice leather folio case for my Air had arrived.
@matigo The guy in that white pick up was shaking his head. I'm saying, "Don't do it idiot! You aren't going to make it!" We sat through three cycles of that light before he got himself totally screwed up. At least after the trailer dropped into that embankment, we had room to get around him.
On the way home, this jerk held us up. This was before the idiotic u-turn attempt dropped his trailer into the embankment and busted out a big chunk of the road. I hope he's still stuck.
@literary The last time I was there longer than overnight was when I was three and living on a Air Force base. It was crew cuts on one side of a fence and really smelly, long haired people on the other. I did have a pair of tie dye pants though.
// @larand
@jextxadore Ancient versions of Microsoft Backup would do it to floppies or Travan tapes. That was a long time ago though. They only thing I back up on my Windows box are code and documents and those reside on multiple repositories. Everything else on the computer, I consider expendable
// @skematica
Ever 3.5" drive I have dug up is faulty so far. I have a stash of things from this sedimentary later stowed away from Mister "He doesn't need that anymore. I'll throw it out while he's not here to say NO like I'm a five year old"
That stash is not here though so it will have to be done tonight.
@thrrgilag
The motors in those things were bullet proof. The stepper motor head actuators are another matter.
Those things had no "reference platter" like voice-coil actuators. Atmospheric pressure, heat, humidity, age..all of those things slightly move those things "off-true"
You used to have to "low level" those drives every year or so to assure that you would;t start losing data. There were some programs like Optune that sorta kinda did that for you in a non-destructive way.
As far as I know, this system has NEVER had that done in all these years. It is in Florida - Home of humidity, storms, etc. It has run the business since it was new.
It's pretty freaking incredible.
// @phoneboy
Once upon a time. A long, long time ago. I managed to get my hands on a Burroughs B9000 mini-computer.
I managed to get it up and running plus, with a stack of 132 column tractor-feed paper (No terminal. Just a teletype), a can of WD-40 (to 're-ink' that ancient ribbon),.. print out the oil company payroll that had crashed in 1977.
I had the perverse idea to print those checks out, somehow track down the recipients who were still among us, and mail them with the note: "Sorry for the delay". Neat joke but I never did it.
An old sysadmin from those days, retired, helped me get it up and running. (A big trial. Had to rig up some very clean 220V power, go though a bunch of arcane steps that may or may not have involved chicken entrails, etc.)
My thought was, "Once these guys are gone, no-one's going to know what to do with this stuff".
I never thought I would be sitting here now having similar thoughts about MS-DOS.