zyzzle wrote on 2024-09-21, 22:38:

Standard Def Steve wrote on 2024-09-21, 19:16:

I had mentioned to him that I'd love to upload his masterpieces to archive.org, an idea he was quite enthusiastic about. So one of these days when I have the time I'll try and do exactly that. The cooler evenings are right around the corner!

Looking forward to that day when you upload those Apple II treasures! Please keep us in the loop. For I'm sure there are many dozens (hundreds, even) who appreciate your effots at preservation.

yes, its a great idea, i can't imagine the volume of home written software lost to time as old floppy disks and so forth become unreadable or thrown out

hornet1990 wrote on 2024-09-22, 10:50:

A couple of years ago I decided to rip all my CD's, CDR's and DVD-R's to iso's and put them on my server as a backup. Good job I did too as there were a few that were starting to have failed sector reads. Fortunately most of those were duplicates (another months Win98 MSDN install CD) or I could still read and copy off most of the content.

Going through them threw up some right treasures that I'd forgotton I had. There's a lot of coding information and source code dating from the early/mid-90's to ~2005. An awful lot of warez... I had no idea I had so many copies of different 3DS Max versions for example! Lot's of drivers, game demos, patches and no-cd's, and of course full games too.

I do plan to go through it all, de-duplicate and make much of it it available on my web server but just haven't gotten that far yet.

old versions of software is something i found on old burned CDs and early usb devices (and zip discs!), many still exist online but i'd guess some are pretty much gone. Same for old computer magazine cover disks/cd's. Old save games and varying bits of code i had written and though worth saving are fun to look at too, although also reminders of so many things planned but never finished

I have several GB zip file with some docs from 20 years ago I wanted to keep. It was a joy to find some old desktop wallpapers there.

kolmio wrote on 2024-10-18, 11:34:

I have several GB zip file with some docs from 20 years ago I wanted to keep. It was a joy to find some old desktop wallpapers there.

i can imagine, some nice memories all compressed! actually, i'd be wary of zip files - they can become very slightly corrupted and then become difficult to extract from

gerry wrote on 2024-09-19, 10:48:

momaka wrote on 2024-09-19, 02:42:

So on a related note, one thing I have to say that I appreciate about having smaller HDDs back in the days is that it forced me to be more organized. Now I've gotten lazy & spoiled.

that's true! its faster to simply copy whole folders over at a time than to filter through them, the cost appears when searching for something.

Indeed.
Reminds me of a roomate I used to have in college. He never organized his clothes after washing them and simply just threw them in the "clean" pile. His thought about the matter was that spending the time to organize clothes is wasted time. Funny thing is, every morning I would see him dig at least 15-20 minutes through the pile to find a matching pair of socks, a particular shirt, and fitting pants. 🤣 So if he had spent the 30 or so minutes per week to organize his clothes, he wouldn't be in that situation at all. But he was a lost cause in that regard. 😁

Back onto the topic of the thread, I've also become somewhat sloppy these days... though every once in a while (once every few months seems to be the current situation), I will sit down and try to organize stuff to at least a "good enough" state... e.g. stuff in my Downloads folder reduced to under a page in vertical length (i.e. no scrollbar on the side anymore). I have enough designated folders in it to sort most data stuffs I run into, so the downloaded hoards should all technically have a place to go into.

hornet1990 wrote on 2024-09-22, 10:50:

There's a lot of coding information and source code dating from the early/mid-90's to ~2005. An awful lot of warez... I had no idea I had so many copies of different 3DS Max versions for example! Lot's of drivers, game demos, patches and no-cd's, and of course full games too.

As a teenager growing up in the early/mid 2000's, your comment reminded me of the funny/weird memories of those times!
Indeed warez were like a cult that just about everyone followed.
Remember Limewire? 🤣 As soon as anyone downloaded that, they'd type "Limewire Pro" in the search and download the actual paid "Pro" version through their own free software. 🤣 🤣

So for you, it was 3DS MAX. For me it was Photoshop. I probably have 2 or 3 different PS versions (all old and outdated by now, though)... yet, the only version of Photoshop I will ever and still use today is 7.0, as that was what we learned in high school and what a few of us got given for free (legal student copy) by our teacher when they switched the school PCs to Photoshop (8) CS. So all of that downloading for nothing, really. 😁

DracoNihil wrote on 2024-09-20, 10:40:

I still have all the discs but they're probably not readable anymore due to years having gone by and burned CDs deteriorate more than badly pressed CD-ROMs.

IDK about that.
I have a lot of (legit, pressed) music CDs that are scratch-free, yet developing bad sectors and corruption here and there. Meanwhile, all of my burned TDK CDs from nearly 20 years ago still read perfect.

gerry wrote on 2024-10-22, 13:46:

actually, i'd be wary of zip files - they can become very slightly corrupted and then become difficult to extract from

+1
Though back in the day, I also did the same thing - i.e. zip (or rather, RAR, because who didn't use WinRar back then?) less-frequently-used files/folders and burn them onto a CD. Somehow, though, I was sensible enough even back then to never try to zip/rar everything into one or few large files, though. Instead, I usually packed/archived stuff based on content - i.e. custom maps for CS Source were usually in one RAR file, maps for Need For Speed in another, and etc. I also rarely zipped/rar'd (with compression) image collections, as JPEG doesn't really yield much space savings.