OPENCBM
Rescue and back up your retro media
Christian Cawley has some old Commodore 64 5.25-inch disks, and wants to revisit some personal files from 40 years ago.
OUR EXPERT
Christian Cawley owns an original Commodore 64, an Amiga 1200, and a BBC Micro, but incredibly he doesn’t have enough time to use them all. Who would have guessed?
QUICK TIP
Power supplies for old equipment can be unreliable. New, modern PSUs and reconditioned supplies can be bought online, with an eBaybought power block costing up to £40.
Digging through some old boxes, this author found a shoebox full of 5.25-inch floppy disks. D Back in the ’80s and early ’90s, having owned a Commodore 64, with a 1541-II disk drive. A lot of time was spent on this computer, with activities ranging from playing games (the usual) to creating very basic digital art and using software such as Shoot-’Em-Up Construction Kit (SEUCK) and Graphic Adventure Creator. The aim was to create something at least playable, although that wasn’t always the case (if ever).
We were intrigued by the possibilities of these disks. What old gem or embarrassing archive would we find?
Why archive old disks?
It won’t take long for you to find a collection of downloadable C64 disk images in the D64 format online. Various sites offer disk images and tape images for use in emulators. Of course, the legal status of these ROM files is dubious (see boxout, opposite).
But your own data is yours to archive as you see fit. Save game files, spreadsheet data, art, text documents – you can convert it into whatever format you like. Similarly, you can run public domain software on the original media and convert it to a new format.
Our own collection of disks is heavy on the personal backups of games with a fastloader. But among all these backups and save states are files we were curious to revisit. You might have a similar reason to convert your 5.25-inch physical media into disk images.
Do old disks work?
Perhaps the most significant roadblock in archiving old media is whether you can get the disk to work. Various challenges can prevent the volume from being opened successfully, and the further you go back through the generations of media, the greater the risk of failure.
When it comes to 5.25-inch magnetic disks, storage is paramount. Keeping the disks in a sealed box is preferable, and various issues can arise if this was not the case. Proximity to magnets or electromagnetic sources can damage disks, but be aware that a loss of magnetic orientation is something that can happen naturally over time.