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Retrocomputing

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  • Since writing the above, have you become aware of any other such projects? If magnetic signals are getting weak, I would expect that taking a 5.25" drive, detaching the drive-head wires, and attaching them to something like a PSOC 5 evaluation board (about $20) might make it possible to capture an analog waveform and then simulate trying to read it with a variety of different sense thresholds. I've been toying with the idea of doing that, but wouldn't want to duplicate the efforts of any other such projects. Commented Feb 2, 2022 at 16:32
  • Thanks for the ping, Greaseweazle and FluxEngine would be suitable here too. It’s worth keeping an eye on updates to wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/Rescuing_Floppy_Disks. Pauline looks interesting but it would be more expensive than a PSOC-based solution (ignoring the cost of writing the software!). Commented Feb 2, 2022 at 16:59
  • The approaches I'm familiar with all use the sense amplifier and threshold detect that's present in a drive, and it looks as though Pauline might do so as well. While precisely capturing signal timing might facilitate recovery if e.g. one signal edge in a sector occurs about halfway between the two places it could legitimately appear and all other edges are solid (in which case, if moving that edge one way would yield a valid sector and moving it the other way wouldn't it should be moved in the direction that yields a valid result). Commented Feb 2, 2022 at 17:04
  • Ah, yes, I’m not aware of anything that relies on the signal directly from the heads — various people have discussed that in the past, but I’m not aware of an actual project to do so. Commented Feb 2, 2022 at 17:12