The Ultimate Commodore 1541 Drive Talk: A Deep Dive Into Disks, Controllers, And Much More

The Ultimate 1541 Talk by Michael Steil, presented at the Vintage Computer Festival West

When we think of retrocomputing, it’s very often the computers themselves that get all the glory.  There’s nothing wrong with this of course- the computers of the late 70’s and …read more Continue reading The Ultimate Commodore 1541 Drive Talk: A Deep Dive Into Disks, Controllers, And Much More

The Floppy Disk As A Portable Music Format

We remember the floppy disk as the storage medium most of us used two decades or more ago, limited in capacity and susceptible to data loss. It found its way into a few unexpected uses such as Sony’s Mavica line of digital cameras, but outside those who maintain and use …read more

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Floppy Disks Still Used To Update 747 Flight Software

For garden variety daily computing tasks, the floppy disk has thankfully been a thing of the past for quite some time. Slow, limited in storage and easily corrupted, few yearn for the format to return, even if there is some lingering nostalgia for the disks. As it turns out, though, …read more

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45 Minute Podcast Served Up On A Floppy Disk

Near the turn of the millenium, portable media players like the iPod led to the development of the podcast. The format generally consists of content similar to talk-based radio, and is typically served up in modern codecs like AAC, M4A and MP3. However, [Sean Haas] decided these were all too …read more

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Floppy Drive Keyboard Is Inefficient Fun

Most of us are used to a typical 101-key setup for typing on our machines. Mobile and touchscreen devices have offered alternative interfaces over the years, but generally still sticking to QWERTY or other similar layouts. [foone] cares not for convention however, building a text-entry device based on the iconic …read more

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