A german question I saw that was recently posted... Anybody to help?

[lumberjack]

Hi Guys,
I see this message posted 28/05/2019 on the German VFP User Group with no responses. With the dbfcdx soon to be released anybody still have some hardware available to maybe get X# involved? Thought I will post it here since he is in Hamburg, not sure who is in that area.

mein Name ist Michael Merkel und ich bin der Sammlungsleiter des Archäologischen Museums Hamburg (amh.de). Wir haben in den späten 80er Jahren mit Foxbase eine Datenbank aufgebaut, die ich nun auf zehn 3,5" Disketten in unserem Archiv wiedergefunden habe.
Da ich mich hier auch mit der "digitalen" Entwicklung des Museums beschäftige, habe ich eine Frage: hat jemand von Euch eine Möglichkeit, diese Datenbank für einige Screenshots zum Laufen zu bringen? Wir haben leider nicht mal mehr einen Rechner mit dem entsprechenden Laufwerk und dann wüsste ich auch nicht wie "man" ein solches Vorhaben angeht.
Wenn jemand von Euch eine Idee hat, würde ich mich über eine Mail an merkel@amh.de sehr freuen.

[wriedmann]

Hi Johan,

maybe someone has already answered to him....

Personally I don't think these disks are readable anymore - after about 30 years....It is enough that one of the 10 diks is unreadabe to make the entire project fail.
IMHO he should contact some company specialized in data recovery.....
But I could contact him, if there is nobody else.
Wolfgang

[lumberjack]

Hi Wolfgang,

Hi Johan,
Personally I don't think these disks are readable anymore - after about 30 years....It is enough that one of the 10 diks is unreadabe to make the entire project fail.
IMHO he should contact some company specialized in data recovery.....
But I could contact him, if there is nobody else.

I do realise that some of the disks might not be readable, I just understood it is data not applications. And hence it is a museum there might be some historical information on them that might otherwise be totally lost...

I did not see anybody respond to him on the forum, so it might be a good try...

By the way, I asked my son the other day to start up my old 1987 original XT, and surprisingly the 5.25 inch floppy disks was still operational. There are some Turbo Pascal 5.0 and Clipper source code on them that I suddenly thought I want to re-write. Anyway he needs to still scrutinize all of them to see which still hold the data and which are still on the old 20Mb hard disk...

[wriedmann]

Hi Johan,

I have often to do with old hardware and normally diskettes become unreadable after 5 to 10 years, specially when they are the 1,44 MB type. The 720kb type keeps its data much better.

Anyway, I have written to this person, maybe we can help (but I have my doubts as trying to read them may damage them.
And yes, I do have an USB drive to read 3,5" floppy disks even on my Windows 10 notebook.

Wolfgang

[FFF]

... start up my old 1987 original XT, and surprisingly the 5.25 inch floppy disks was still operational.

Well, here sits an Apple IIe, with two 5 1/4 drives. Might be fun trying to start?

[lumberjack]

... start up my old 1987 original XT, and surprisingly the 5.25 inch floppy disks was still operational.

Well, here sits an Apple IIe, with two 5 1/4 drives. Might be fun trying to start?

Will you inform us if it upgraded to iOS successfully...

[wriedmann]

Hi Johan,

the OS for Mac computers is MacOS, not iOS (at least currently). <g>

Wolfgang

[lumberjack]

Hi Johan,
the OS for Mac computers is MacOS, not iOS (at least currently). <g>

Damn, and here I thought Windows for Mac is the next OS Karl can test... I thought I will start testing W10 for DOS6.0...

[wriedmann]

Hi Johan,
I have now received an answer from this person (Dr. Merkel), stating that he has already received many answers from Foxbase people, and for now it's problem is to find a 3,5" diskette drive.
I have sent him a link to some eBay offers for such drives.

Wolfgang

[lumberjack]

Hi Johan,
I have now received an answer from this person (Dr. Merkel), stating that he has already received many answers from Foxbase people, and for now it's problem is to find a 3,5" diskette drive.
I have sent him a link to some eBay offers for such drives.

Thanks Wolfgang,

Hopefully you mentioned he need to refer them to X# when they get the 3.5" drive...