Data recovered from Gene Roddenberry's old floppy disks

[IrvinWithAnEye]

I am going to be paying particularly close attention to this!! This has got to be like the sci-fi version of The Rembrandt Letters!!!

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3018...s-lost-words-recovered-from-old-floppies.html

 

[Kor]

Did anyone else look at this thread title and think it was about the character Data? That would be quite a whopper.

I do find it rather surprising that they couldn't find a working 5.25" floppy drive anywhere. If nothing else, there are plenty of computing museums around.

Kor

 

[seigezunt]

Did anyone else look at this thread title and think it was about the character Data? That would be quite a whopper.

*raises hand*

I do find it rather surprising that they couldn't find a working 5.25" floppy drive anywhere. If nothing else, there are plenty of computing museums around.

Pretty sure I have one in my attic ...

 

[Bagofmostlywatr]

Got a working one in my gaming rig, just tried it.

But then I never got bored of Elite.

I think what they're saying is the way the CPM-based computer formatted the discs (ie divided the tracks into sectors) is a bit on the proprietary side.

 

[Mytran]

I'm sure I've got an old 5.25" drive or two - they're built into a Maxibrain the attic.

Well, it is my parent's attic, so I'm only assuming that they're still there!

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

I saw the same story here. I hope the information is at least interesting.

 

[Kor]

I think what they're saying is the way the CPM-based computer formatted the discs (ie divided the tracks into sectors) is a bit on the proprietary side.

Yeah, that makes more sense.

Kor

 

[trekker670]

I don't think the issue was so much hardware as it was software. 5.25" drives are available, as has been indicated, the issue was that the disks were created using an old operating system (CP/M) on a custom-built PC, on top of physical damage to the disks.

The article states the disks that written from a DOS machine were easy to recover, since DOS is still pretty readily available.

The CP/M disks were much more difficult to use, because they had to manually recover the data and convert it to a format that's readable using today's technology.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Yeah, I thought it was a joke topic about Data having been backed up onto floppies before the events of Nemesis.

Hey, Star Trek XI: The Search For Data. Ninety minutes about trying to decode floppies with 24th century tech.

I still have a bunch of diskettes somewhere with games I played when I was seven. But the problem is, when I plug them into an old computer I have lying around from 1999, they run faster due to processing speed differences which drastically increases the difficulty to the point of near impossibility.

 

[Kor]

^ I would suggest transferring them (somehow) to a contemporary computer, and then using the freeware program "DosBox" to run them. You can emulate a slower PC with that, and the programs will run at the correct speed.

I wonder how many of those floppies it would take to store Data's programming.

Kor

 

[Bagofmostlywatr]

Funnily enough I watched Measure of Man earlier, and they say how much storage he has in quadrillions of Bits, it's not clear how much is available to the user and how much is taken up by Android though

 

[ancient]

I hope there isn't too much toga porn.

 

[Bagofmostlywatr]

800, quadrillion bits
100 quadrillion bytes
100x10^15 bytes
10^17 bytes
10^14 kb (ish)
10^11 mb
10^8 GB
10^5 tb
100 Petabytes

 

[JirinPanthosa]

^ I would suggest transferring them (somehow) to a contemporary computer, and then using the freeware program "DosBox" to run them. You can emulate a slower PC with that, and the programs will run at the correct speed.

I wonder how many of those floppies it would take to store Data's programming.

Kor

They are MacPlus programs.

 

[Kor]

^ Hmm, there must be some way out there, though.

800, quadrillion bits
100 quadrillion bytes
100x10^15 bytes
10^17 bytes
10^14 kb (ish)
10^11 mb
10^8 GB
10^5 tb
100 Petabytes

So that would take 6,250,000,000 5.25" floppy disks if they each held 160 kb each like the ones described in the article.

Fascinating.

Kor

 

[jefferiestubes8]

2-3MB of data was recovered from the 200 floppies

That could amount to some story ideas or possibly scripts for Trek or other Roddenberry TV show/movies?

Roddenberry surely controlled the timing of the release of this even though no information was actually given as to intellectual property being "Star Trek".
This is why I am guessing it is not actually Star Trek content. Perhaps this is to get Roddenberry's son a foot in the door to introduce a possible story idea for the next trek series to have anything on the show credits other than 'created by Gene Roddenberry and showrunner's name here'?
Maybe DriveSavers Data Recovery NDA stated not to make public until Roddenberry's estate says so and now they decided it was time since the show has been announced and it is 2016 and the big pre-production and production year for the show?

 

[Bagofmostlywatr]

^ Hmm, there must be some way out there, though.

800, quadrillion bits
100 quadrillion bytes
100x10^15 bytes
10^17 bytes
10^14 kb (ish)
10^11 mb
10^8 GB
10^5 tb
100 Petabytes

So that would take 6,250,000,000 5.25" floppy disks if they each held 160 kb each like the ones described in the article.

Fascinating.

Kor

"When will you have data back online Geordie?"
"We're restoring him from the backup, it's gonna take a while longer yet Captain"
PLEASE INSERT DISK 4

 

[Ronald Held]

I still have an 8" floppie from my first CP/M machine somewhere. Uncertain what is on it.

 

[Orac]

Roddenberry's Recovered Data Disc One:

All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy.

All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy.

All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy.

All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy.

All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy.

All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy.

All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy. All work and no play makes Gene a dull boy.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

^ I'm amazed all those spaces line up like that. Must be part of the secret code.