Reliable 3.5" DSHD diskettes

[Sridhar Ayengar]

Joe R. wrote:
> At 10:12 AM 11/8/05 -0500, you wrote:
> 
>>Joe R. wrote:
>>
>>>At 10:45 PM 11/6/05 +0000, you wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>>I've noticed that what passes for 3.5" blank media nowadays is downright
>>>>
>>>>This is a common moan here. I've noticed it too -- as I am fond of 
>>>>pointing out, about 20 years ago I bought some 5.25" disks for my TRS-80 
>>>>model 1. THose disks cost me (then) \pounds 3.00 each, and my Model 1 
>>>>stored 88K on them (single sided, 35 cylinders, single density).
>>>>
>>>>Thing is, those disks are still readable. I wish I could pay that sort of 
>>>>price _now_ for a 3.5" disk and get something that I could read back 
>>>>again in <n> years time. My data is worth a lot more than that.
>>>>
>>>>(Oh and don't tell me to use CD-Rs or DVDs, or whatever. I've yet to find 
>>>>such devives with an HPIL interface (for example)).
>>>
>>>
>>>   Hmmm. I have a couple of HP-IB MO drives and a HP-IL to HP-IB converter.
>>>I wonder???
>>
>>Also, I know for a fact that there are HP-IB CD-ROM drives because I 
>>have one.
> 
> 
>    I have one too but it's not CD-R or CD-RW.  FWIW I've been lucky enough
> to find several HP-IB drives that use Bernoulli disks, MO disks and other
> rewriteable media. :-)

My point is that if the goal is to back up machines which only have an 
HP-IL interface for archival purposes, one could use floppies to get the 
data onto a machine that would have the ability to write the data onto a 
CD.  It then wouldn't be particularly difficult to read that CD in an 
HP-IL-only machine.

Peace...  Sridhar