RETRO RESCUE
Rescuing data from legacy floppy disks
Matt Holder discovers that rescuing data from 20-yearold floppy disks is a lot more difficult than expected.
OUR EXPERT
has been a fan of the open source methodology for over two decades and uses Linux and other tools where possible. In his spare time, he enjoys listening to music and reading.
QUICK TIP
More information about the Greaseweazle can be found at https://github. com/keirf/ greaseweazle/.
Let’s take a trip down memory lane to when your author was still a child. One L glorious summer day, after a short car ride and £1,600 (that’s £3,400 in 2023 pounds) spent, we returned home with a couple of rather large boxes. Inside these boxes were a keyboard, mouse, cables, monitor and an Acorn A5000. This glorious computer started an interest in computing that continues to this day, having already spanned the best part of 30 years, and shows no sign of disappearing.
Over the next four pages, we will be discussing the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation, for readers who are outside of the UK) and its Computer Literacy Project, Acorn Computers and the computers it designed, as well as how to emulate these devices and then how to rescue data from original disks.
During the early ’80s, the BBC began a project to educate the general public about computing. The BBC spoke with a number of manufacturers before deciding to partner with Acorn Computers. The BBC produced many TV programmes, magazines and other educational materials, while Acorn Computing designed and built the hardware. This ambitious project spanned a number of years and over a million devices were sold. Schools across the UK used BBC computers, due to the standardised hardware and educational materials that were made available.
The BBC has released the archives of the project and the TV broadcasts and programs written can all be viewed at https://clp.bbcrewind.co.uk.
Moving to 32-bit
Following the partnership with the BBC and the release of the final 8-bit devices, Acorn released the A3000. This device contained a 32-bit processor and used one of the newly developed ARM processors. To be able to utilise the hardware effectively, Acorn needed an operating system that could take advantage of any new features. Interestingly, work began on Arthur, the successor to Acorn MOS, in 1987 – before RISC iX development had begun. This makes a lot of sense, because of the vast differences between the two different architectures involved. Arthur was not strictly a multitasking OS, but applications could run concurrently. The desktop environment ran on top of a command-line operating system and was written in a combination of assembly language and BBC BASIC.