I have lived for a decade and a half in Micronesia, on tropically humid and
hot, and dusty islands. During these years, I have often wondered how best
to take care of floppies. (I may have posted to this list a couple of years
ago!).
I have often seen relatively naive advice concerning how to care for
floppies in the tropics, mainly to protect them in various ways. But no
matter how we protect them, they still go bad in a year or (rarely) two.
Even normal air conditioning is relatively ineffective. The main culprits
are apparently fungi, though I've never looked at them under a microscope.
Are there any floppy manufacturers or vendors with web sites concerning care
and feeding of floppies (esp. under environmental extremes)?
My questions would include:
1. How best to prevent this fungal growth.
2. How to rescue disks in a relatively recent state of fungal attack.
3. Is there a hope for disks in advanced state of fungal attack?
4. Are there certain disks that are better under environmental
extremes?
5. Does cleaning with alcohol and a swab work? How to best do this?
6. What is that stripe that sometimes shows up, sometimes on the
innermost cylinder of a floppy, when we get those disk error
messages? (I don't use DOS so I don't remember that error).
I have run into several approaches to protecting valuables that are
vulnerable to humidity/fungi.
1. A candle in the cabinet.
2. Silica Gel and other dessicants in an enclosed space.
I also imagine a good air tight suitcase, like a Pelican case (Not a
haliburton case---in spite of having a nice seal, have a look at the
combination locks, through which a cupful of water would pass in seconds)
would be ok with silica gel. Then again, with silica gel, one has to redry
it, not easy in the field.
I'd like whether experiments may have been carried out by manufacturers, and
how precise the various parameters are known. What are the limits? What
can be done? The day of the floppy may nearly be over, but then what of
tapes?
Alan
--
Alan E. Davis Marianas High School (Science Department)
AAA196, Box 10001 [log in to unmask] http://www.saipan.netpci.com/~adavis
Saipan, MP 96950 15.16oN 145.7oE GMT+10 Northern Mariana Islands
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