Unfortunately this meant that one couldn’t preserve a disk if they don’t own a machine of that platform – older hardware often fails for various reasons, not least for the fact that floppy disk drives are mechanical devices. IBM/PC disks in an IBM/PC and Mac disks in a Mac. One way was just to read the disk in the native system – i.e. Before the Kryofluxīefore the Kryoflux, the solution to imaging and preserving disks could be done in several ways. It’s nice to know that some of this goes towards supporting the Software Preservation Society (SPS), and the device itself has found use in official preservation efforts in libraries around the world.

Wouldn’t it be nice to get access to these? The problem is time – it keeps ticking along … and your disks aren’t getting any younger.Įnter the solution – the Kryoflux! A high-resolution USB connected flux sampler which implements a “software” floppy controller, supporting almost every format known and capable of analysing copy protections at the bit cell level. At 75 EUR for the board only, it’s not expensive, but I guess it’s not like buying an Arduino. Maybe they’re in esoteric formats too – Commodore, Atari, Mac? Maybe you wish you’d have migrated them when you had the chance – or built pristine images of them which you could use.

Some of them still might contain something interesting – documents from when you were younger and even software. But those puny disks, holding less than 2Mb a piece still rest on your desk, in your drawers and possibly in some archive boxes somewhere. Computer cases are beginning to lose their 3.5″ front facing bays, and USB floppy disk drives are starting to dry up. Floppy drives are no longer sold at computer stores, motherboards have almost all completely eliminated the onboard interface.

It’s 2013 – and the floppy disk is extinct.

Ibm formatted floppy disk