Floppy Disks - Amiga Memories

[@iainmclaughlan1557]

I still use floppy disks regularly, I used it today on my Amiga A600.

[@chainedenintenloup]

I'm still using them a lot on my old pcs. I have like 900 disks. I just love them. With all of these floppies, I can say that the newer one are really unreliable. My old 80's and 90's ones had a failure ratio of like 1 to 2% when I got them and who knows for how long they where not used. This year I didn't have any bad old floppy, but the newer ones just keep dying all the time so I use those till they die, it will save a couple of the old one for later. Great video.

[@Djformula]

So much info about floppies I had forgot! Excellent video real retro feel and love the direction your videos are going.

[@Tech-geeky]

Can never get too much info abut floppies.

[@JoeBetro]

Thank you Dan for keeping the Amiga spirit alive! X

[@GadgetUK164]

Great summary of floppies and their use on the Amiga there =) Rob Northern was quite famous for doing all sorts of protection schemes and special disk formats for floppies back in the day:- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Northen_copylock This video brought back a lot of memories for me - The cover disks with demos and sometimes full versions (Ocean released the full version of TFX for the Amiga as a cover disk). I spent a lot of time in my teens at a friends house copying Amiga games I wanted, using x-copy! He was lucky enough to know someone with BB access and he always had the latest games as soon as they were released.

[@pferreira1983]

That Cannon Fodder/Sensible Soccer game was terrific fun. Good times!

[@Tech-geeky]

Its true.. Things HAVE never been so much fun :)

[@pferreira1983]

@@Tech-geeky They did a good job.

[@rich081176uk]

I still think the xj220 music sounds great. The Amiga really was amazing. What a time to be a young kid back in the day. Amiga Vs st, Swapping pirated games at school and not forgetting son of stag 😂. Keep up the great work Dan. Love these vids.

[@pacbilly]

These cover disks are yet another reason I wished I'd lived in the UK through the 90s.

[@pacbilly]

A few booksellers imported the UK mags but they were very expensive.

[@onlineamiga]

***** I feel for you. The magazines were our connection to the Amiga community. I used to dive straight for the letters page and write in many times myself hoping mine would get published. I'd hang outside the newsagents first thing in the morning to grab the latest Amiga Format and dive straight into all the new lovely software and games it came with.

[@Nostalgianerd]

I had that lockable floppy storage box... what a beauty. I miss my bytes consuming a surmountable amount of space.

[@Tech-geeky]

I forgot how many lockable boxes i went through.... mine always seemed to crack. My floppy disks lasted longer lol.

[@treguard1982]

Thanks for the video. Part of the experience for me was listening to the drive while waiting for programs/games to load. They often sounded quite tuneful! Seeing those clear coloured disks certainly brought back memories - I remember having that Cannon Fodder one :D

[@treguard1982]

treguard1982 Hehe let's be honest, I'd be surprised if there are any people out there who didn't have pirated games for the Amiga :)

[@treguard1982]

treguard1982 Spotted Mortal Kombat 2 there at the end. I could never get the first one to work, and it was ridiculous how many times you had to change the disk lol

[@danwood_uk]

treguard1982 Yeah I maybe should have put a "this video glorifies piracy" disclaimer up, but yeah everyone I knew certainly did!

[@treguard1982]

Hehe I think you'll be fine ;) I did find it funny that it was someone at your dad's work too. Seems pretty common!

[@RetroMMA]

Dan Wood (kookytech.net) In the US I was paying $14.99 for UK magazines (and I have over 100) but lets be real, piracy really did kill the Amiga in part. For every pirated game I had, I had 3 that I bought outright. I guess theses days it doesn't matter that much but it still makes me sad that both the consumers [pirates] and CBM themselves [also pirates] were so greedy.

[@onlineamiga]

Thanks for the video Dan. Some brilliant memories brought back. Everything is just transferred through the internet these days and a lot has been lost as a result. I never had my disks sorted properly so would take me ages flicking through them all trying to find Disk 3 of Mortal Kombat and getting frustrated at the same time! Sadly dont have any of my old Amiga stuff anymore since leaving the UK many years ago and not being able to take it all with me, so it all ended up getting trashed :(

[@gazmck]

I reckon I had pretty much every coverdisk you have shown I was always buying amiga mags ! Great memories

[@Foebane72]

After I got several Amiga floppies, I got fed up of flicking through them, so I developed a labelling system that used the top part of the disk to show the name, very much like the end labels on old NES cartridges. Worked a treat, especially when I went further with a colour-coding system to differentiate between games, utilities and so forth.

[@FinePairofPollocks]

Thank you, such happy memories of disk protection and loaders that would punished even the toughest drive. There was a pd magazine that had amiga atari and pc all on one disk.

[@hannibalsolo4409]

I still remember wondering what the world was coming to when I bought my first PC without a floppy drive. Dystopian future indeed. Coverdiscs and tapes were one of the best things about importing expensive c64/amiga mags from the UK to Denmark.

[@Tech-geeky]

Funny how the longer you linger on something, you wanna go back, how matter how irritating the sound of a floppy drive was... I guess that when today's emulation software like WinUAE, and FS-UAE (Mac), there are ways to disable the floppy sound permanently. As Amiga fans... you should be feeling sorry for yourselves :P

[@Back2thefutureGaming]

great vid dan, brought back all the memories. I was one of those little scallies that pinched the cover disks. Terrible when i think back now at the ripe age of 40 lol..keep up the good work..never miss a vid.

[@gary72carol61]

Oh Dan thanks for this video, I have watched your videos for a while now and I feel just as much for the Amiga as you do. I laughed at the part where you showed us your favourite stickers for your blank disks here 15:00 but this point 15:15 that is exactly how I was about my stickers, I once bought a roll with about 500, can`t remember if I ever used them all, very much doubt it, but oh man great to watch that, it took me back just watching how much you miss those days, because I do too. By the way I am 43 years old, so I was there from the start of home gaming. I had a little box which was called Astro Wars, sniff sniff, loved it.

[@GazzVille]

Great video Dan, brought back lots of memories!

[@fastcars7016]

Disks are cool to keep. Brings tons of memories.

[@Zontar82]

I had that datalux floppy box!ah the memories..very nice video,basiclly everyhing thatyou did or happened with tour floppies,happened to me as well at some point

[@meetoo594]

I was one of those ne'er-do-wells that pinched coverdisks in the newsagents. The trick was to pretend to read it whilst stealthily tearing it off the cover and secreting it up your coat sleeve, remembering to put the mag back near the rear of the pile so as not to raise the shopkeepers suspicion. On a lighter note, I had loads of those transparent disks, the local wh smith used to stock em.

[@AnalogX64]

Here in Canada the Amiga 1000, 2000 and 500 where the popular models, never really saw the 1200 or 600. There are industrial Robots that still use floppies to store programming data and you can still buy them.

[@Ekiwi3EnterprisesInc]

Thanks for the great video Dan, really takes me back! I still have all my floppies!

[@Tech-geeky]

Your lucky.... I just like looking at them, now and say "gosh that would look soo dam good right about now" lol..

[@madfinntech]

That was nostalgic to say at the least.

[@AthenaNova1]

As an American Amiga User, I bought quite a few Imported copies of Amiga Format and CU Amiga at the Bookstore chain Barnes & Noble. They cost between US$10-$15 each! I got them for the Cover Discs and to see how the Amiga scene was doing in the UK. I also often got Future Music for the Cover CDs it came with.

[@NSG_UK]

I remember these so much, my brother had a habit of putting the floppy disks next to monitor or external speakers and all the memory was wiped of! In the end had to use xcopy over magazine cover disks from local retailer free of charge.

[@Sodomantis]

The sound of the FFD makes my funny parts tingle. What sweet sound

[@Tech-geeky]

So much so, you can even find KZbin videos of Commodore floppy drives lined up and play a song just using the floppy heads.

[@alexstone7035]

I recently found, in an old box of assorted floppies, a windows disk that had been wiped and used to pirate Superfrog. There's just something quintessentially Amigan about that.

[@predcon1]

Is there a Part Two coming? Something that explains the differences between IBM/PC and Amiga floppies, and why the Amiga disks made that distinctive sound when loading?

[@onlineamiga]

I also printed my labels in almost the exact same way on a canon bubble jet printer! I actually paused the video to take a closer look at the disk, as for a second I thought you might have had one of mine there!

[@Nostalgianerd]

Having just read that MagPi are giving away a free computer with their magazine. It feels like a good time to watch this and reminisce about the time when magazines came with free floppies. NOT Bloomin' Computers!!!

[@Larry]

Those locks on those disk holders absolutely suck. all you need to do is twist or push the top to the right slightly and the catch comes out of the hole. But I had mine in plastic bags too until someone new bought a new pair of shoes and the box would be re-purposed for my disks.

[@Tech-geeky]

aiding in preventing was always the aim.... Even a lock on a door won't defeat the determined thief.

[@mjptrapster]

I have a box from a local school I was sent on sabbatical over to a few years ago. Brand new, shrink wrapped with blank school logo labels attached. The more rare one's I've got include some stamped with Birmingham City Council, 5x copies of Office 4.2 on floppy (that is a lot of discs!) and a lockable box full of Acorn floppies.

[@Gooberslot]

You Amiga owners in the UK sure did have it a lot better.that us in the US. I only remember one Amiga magazine over here and it didn't come with disks.

[@bfnut]

Well, I go back to 89. It was when I bought my first Amiga 500...snif, snif Before that was the commodore 64 and after the Amiga 1200...snif... ;)

[@paulisthebest3uk]

I do remember the amiga coverdisks and the free software on them which made amiga format a very cool magazine to purchase, especially when they provided 100 quids worth of software, even though maybe there was a hidden agenda i dont know now i look back it lol. I do remember having to find blank disks to Expand the disks from the coverdisks (being a non-hdd amiga owner at the time). Fun memories

[@Foebane72]

One time I bought a game (Damocles) for the A500 which I had had on an older computer system, and my mother was outraged that I'd "wasted money" once again, so she took the disk and snapped it in two and declared that "that was the end of it". Not really, I simply fished out the remains and put the circular magnetic disk into a new plastic case - problem solved! Then there was the time that I got the demo "Beyond Belief" from demogroup "Noxious" - my mother was once again outraged when she saw on the disc, in one sentence, "Noxious Beyond Belief" - luckily this time she let it pass, but it was close!

[@williamcadence]

I had that exact copy of cannon soccer on the green floppy, seeing it took me back to my bedroom playing data storm and cannon fodder!!

[@jothain]

Occasionally I get nostalgic when I see floppy disks. But then almost immediately I remember something like Monkey Island 2 or similar with one broken disk and nostalgy turns into almost pure hatred :D

[@Tmuk2]

I'll never forget having to swap disks 6 TIMES every time I went into the graveyard in Monkey Island 2 on my bog standard A1200!

[@Tech-geeky]

it actually takes me LESS time to play Monkey island 2 from start to finish now on emulation on HD.. only 4 hours.... the rest was of floppy waiting/swapping time on my Amiga 500 back in the day.

[@clintans]

Oh.. haha, I use to order software by checking list from magasinez, or just call them and pick software like candy and they would put them on floppys, then head in to town and pick them up. I also use to buy ready made utility disc. Bought a lot of english magazines even though we had Datormagazin in Sweden. Good times... And thank you for sharing this. :)

[@jvidia]

Hello Dan! Great video!! I still love floppy disks! They are part of my memory! I still can resist when I see some MF2DD on sale ;) I buy all I can if they are still sealed. I cant use the modern solutions showed by you in this video. I'm a 100% retro lover ;)

[@Tech-geeky]

i bet you can also resist when you get that annoying strain waiting and swapping too.. I know i do... But i still like to go back regardless. Give me the pain of wrist strain, i can take it.

[@jvidia]

@@Tech-geeky nope at all!

[@Tech-geeky]

I like nostalgic Amiga stuff, so forgive me anytime someone bringing out a new spiffy thing that connects via RS-232 port to turn a USB into a large floppy with as many games you can fit, i cringe... As good as that is, your lacking the old days of 'swapping floppies in and out, then waiting" (..not always patiently,..)🤬 but give me that anyday... If you start taking stuff away, how can you call it nostalgic ? Same reason why i prefer physically CU Amiga mags over digital ones.. Their just not the same,.. That's not a bad thing, but feeling the pages is always something you can never take away.

[@MrFixer1983]

I like to listing to reading sound of those floppy's ;)

[@Tech-geeky]

I can understand ow people hate the sound.. it does grow on ya after a time... but it still sounds good.. I enjoy it.

[@bent540]

shivers up my spine....

[@Theshadowsnose]

I still regularly use floppy disks. Not on the Amiga because it's a real pain to write them on a PC, or better said to write data from the PC onto them on an Amiga. For the ST and the MSX you can simply write the images back to disk on a PC and use them on the real machine. No need for an 'expensive' Gotek emulator. I don't even think the Gotek works on those machines, so you would need an HxC2001 for them anyways which is even more expensive. I have an HxC in my A500 that I bought back in early '88 and I was so happy to get rid of real floppys on the Amiga. Allways hated them. Back in the days we bought them in bulk on the Cologne Amiga fair. They were quality brand disks (Sony iirc) but were completely unlabeled and came in white boxes of 50. The carton where those boxes came in was the only thing labeled Sony... I guess they were intended for mass producing (PD) software, but we happily used them to store our *cough* backups *cough*. Memories... I still remember buying my first pack of blanks. They were 50 bucks over here... the price of 5 Mastertronic games for the C64.

[@theseob]

I also like to use floppies. But when one of my msx drives failed because of a worn out belt, and when it still didn't work after i changed the belt. I got myself a cheap china gotek imitation. After playing arround with the internal jumpers for a while, and rewiring the floppydrive cable, i did manage to get it to work on my philips msx2. So you can replace a msx drive with a gotek imitation drive, and it will work. I only need to add a second 5v dc because the drive is drawing a lot of current from the 5v line, make the screen flikker when accessing the drive.

[@vollderdude]

great video! thanks for sharing your memories, everything sounds familiar to me :-)

[@nanettemccrone25]

I love my old games. And while I think gotek and who lost are brilliant nothing beats using the floppy disk love the sounds.

[@JonnyInfinite]

Sensible Soccer, that takes me back. Remember the Gol-den Goal competition in the One for ST and Amiga?

[@emsss78]

My best days ever were when I had the Amiga 500 :(

[@Vebinz]

I always liked them. Sure cd's are more convenient, but for their time they were sweet!

[@RETRONuts]

I still have the demo disks you have there..;) I have one copy of Amiga Format, it was a specail copy from 1994 covering the end of Commodore. I don't use floppies anymore just use WHDLOad now..Great video BTW Dan,intersting.. The first mag I got was Amiga Format and it had Octmed floppy on it..:) You have my floppy box too... Datalux..still have mine with games and demos in..?

[@alex76gr]

I loved floppy disks in their time, but now i can't bear or trust them any more.

[@linusevosonic]

Jaguar XJ220 intro Theme in background :) Love that game!

[@Tech-geeky]

I never did learn to play Hired guns... Call me a coward,, i just booted up just to listen to the intro music

[@wrestletube1]

Those little bliters were definitely horrific. Electronic Art's had some of the worst floopy reliablitys with Desert Strike failing on me before et took it to work and got it virus removed.

[@GregProbert1971]

Great video!

[@andljoy]

oh them labels, had exactly the same ones on my A3010 had the same storage box too ( one in middle)

[@JohnnyJTav]

I still have all my Amiga game discs in 3 double cases

[@garyhart6421]

I have 3 un-opened boxes of Translucent Rainbow Coloured Disks. 2 by Imation (neon) and 1 by Memorex which includes a Plastic Disk Box. I still have several hundred cover disks, lots of which I KryoFluxed for the SPS.

[@sologals361]

The Amiga is awesome.The best low end model was the A1200.

[@cybermaxpower]

I

[@Tech-geeky]

I dunno,,, I kinda miss the corrupted disks... and the read errors...Sounds strange today, but i guess the way to put it would be how kids today like Vinyl records.. particularly those with scratches because they think the scratches were part of the old days .. (....that still cracks me up every time i hear it>.)

[@iainmclaughlan1557]

You said you took your Amiga to school, wow. I remember the computers at University were not as good as the Amiga, I wish I asked if I could bring my Amiga into University as Easy AMOS was so much easier than Visual Basic in 1997.

[@trydowave]

I have an upgraded A1200 hooked up to an LCD for no disk swapping, AGA titles of course and installing things on the CF. But when I want to go pure reto I ve got the ol A500 hooked up to a CRT with 3 Cumana External floppie drives. Most of my fave games came on 1 or 2 floppies so disk swapping isn't an issue. As for the failing of the disks. I don't seem to have that many errors either.

[@nedmcfabulous3788]

Thanks for the upload : )

[@ep1phany62]

Remind me again, once you’ve finished playing an Amiga game, do you just turn off the system and then eject the disc? Or do you eject the disc and turn off the system?

[@jonnyretro3128]

I love them

[@danhulson8703]

i would appreciate,if you could show the alternative to disks on the atari ST like gotek drives i cant find no info on them.many thanks mate

[@MrStephen182]

If the disks still work then that's all I use on my Amiga 1200.

[@artnaim]

I love to play D/Generation :)

[@kubignol]

Hi Dan. Thanks for your great channel! I discovered it when I was searching how to transfer files between a pc and a commodore Amiga or a 1541 disk drive (I finally bought a IDE-Compact Flash adapter; if you're interested, I can tell you more about it). You seem to have a huge knowledge about the 90's games. I watched recently the movie "Wreck it Ralph" and the "Sugar Rush" scene (kzbin.info/www/bejne/aaHSpIONqqZsidU) reminded me a game I saw at the time but I can't figure which game it was. So I have a challenge for you ;-) Maybe you could give me a clue? It was a scrolling platform game with some pink or pastel, transparent polygons as background. It could also have a bubble gum appearance. I thought it was Zool but when I saw some screenshots, the atmosphere didn't match with my blurred memories. It shouldn't be Quick 'n Silva or Rainbow Islands neither. Actually I'm not sure anymore that it was an Amiga game, maybe it was on the Snes... whatever. I've already watched all the 16 pages of screenshots of platform games on lemonamiga.com, but I didn't find a match. Sorry for my very poor description but that's all I can remember. So does it remind you something? Thanks!

[@104d_3rr0r_vince]

I have many solutions for my micros but I always repair tape decks and drives cause I want them to function properly. There is nothing like loading from a tape/disk, the feeling is awesome and yes I did felt that smell you said. Btw fb sucks balls.

[@bwack]

Thanks for the memories. The music at 12:51 sounds familiar. I think it must be one of the first modules I heard on the Amiga. Do you know what it is ? I wonder if it is from a game and not a demo..Edit: Double Dragon II !! Do you remember the floppy labels that you wrapped over the top of the disk and then after some time it would loosen from the rear side of the disk. Hated those labels so much :D

[@danwood8702]

bwack The mod is called Atmosphere, it was the intro music to Double Dragon II :) And yes, the labels I show in this vid have lost their adhesiveness over time and regularly do that, very annoying!

[@bwack]

Dan Wood Thank you! The cool guys who had the early A500's (Kickstart 1.2, or 1.3 but with early chipset (OCS?)) could play Doube Dragon II, but on my A500 lines in that game were garbaged, and that awesome module in the background I guess thats why it stuck to memory.

[@YoStu242]

Strange but I never had any problems with floppy disks, they always worked OK and not a single metal shield popped off lol

[@Shot97]

I'll use them as long as I can. They still make brand new ones. I use flash options for my consoles but I've never been impressed with floppy emulators. I think you're creating more of a pain with them. Sorting them, finding them,Deforming the look of the machine to get the wires of anemulator inside, changing the disks... If you have the disks and they work it's much more convenient using the real thing. On the Amiga itself, I'd never consider using an emulator unless I was forced to. The Amiga has the most unique sounding floppy drive ever. It has its own personality and the emulated floppy sounds are annoying by comparison and I don't understand why they're even there. But that does go to show you just how unique a sound it has, because no emulators have floppy sounds except for the Amiga ones. I don't understand it. People get the real deal because they don't like emulation... There's something not authentic about it and that's why we would rather have the real thing. The floppy drive is an integral piece of the hardware and to say emulation is fine when it comes to that just does not make sense to me. Using an emulator on the real machine... It's just another step away from having an authentic experience. With an everdrive you're dealing with carts... One cart for one game. It's simple , it makes sense... Real carts can get expensive... It's really your only option when it comes to getting some games to play on the real hardware. Floppy disks are plentiful, they are cheap, new ones will work for a long time, and you can get anything you ever wanted onto them. So many Amiga games are hard drive installable anyway... Some aren't unless you use another WHDLoad... Which, even if it is a program on the real machine, I think that's taking away from the real experience. But there are plenty of games that can be installed naturally onto a hard drive (any of the huge 4+disk games would be in this category) that it's really not a big hassle to deal with the ones that don't deal with AmigaDOS. The non DOS games usually feature even more unique floppy sounds that emulation will simply never even touch, not that they come close with the ADOS disk sounds either. Anyway, I'll use my disk drives until they break and I can't find a replacement for them or all the disks in the world become unreadable. Speaking of which, that's my biggest memory of floppy disks. The Read/Write Error. This became a huge problem with my Amiga disks in the mid-late 90's. Still not sure if it was the disks that were corrupt or if the drives were dead (sometimes they'd work in the external drive) but that sound is so unique and so horrifying to hear. Sometimes it starts but does not go through with the error... So you get the start of the sound, raise your eyebrows, get this sinking feeling in your stomach, only to experience relief once it loads anyway. The Amiga did seem to have the worst aging of any disks. Almost all my C64 disks still work (5 1/4 was the better disk) and pretty much all my 3 1/2 DOS disks still work... But almost all the Amiga disks died... Maybe... Again, not quite sure because I tossed most of them before I tried a new drive. But then again I also kept those disk near speakers so... But others tend to agree the Amiga disks break down quickly compared to others. They tried to get too much storage out of them and were writing to sectors other computers would not. Still, they did last a good 10 years even being by speakers so with my new floppy disks I'm going to see how long they last this time. So far, so good.

[@optimalsupreme5080]

wheres the portable 3.5 storage container lol

[@robertallanmiller2363]

Lol amazing

[@amigachris]

I still have boxes and boxes of amiga floppies going back to "86 slowly getting rid on ebay. Never gonna use em...

[@danwood_uk]

***** A lot of mine don't work any more sadly, I'd say at least 50%

[@GazzJ82]

Dan Wood (kookytech.net) Same here, although pratically all cassettes from the C64 and Spectrum still seem to be fine. Who would have thought they would outlive the floppy!

[@Eddies_Bra-att-ha-grejer]

It sucks that it's so hard to get new DD floppy disks. Anyone who knows a good way to remove the old labels and glue when refurbishing old disks?

[@Harp00nX]

if you want that label off the disk box, soak it in WD40 for 5-10 minutes to dissolve the glue then it will come off easily

[@mickkiller]

Anyone remember the sensible soccer demo that had a bomb instead of a football?

[@GazzJ82]

I use my label printer nowdays, even though I have a A1200 with whdload, disks are still nice to have around. i1323.photobucket.com/albums/u583/gazj82/20150502_160945_zpsi0b85oyz.jpg

[@TopSecretVid]

Tell you why I need to use one..today. I need to download an lha file and none of my Amigas are connected to the internet so I will download to a PC and save it to a floppy then put that floppy into my A4000 and boom.

[@optimalsupreme5080]

thats not a floppy the floppy is 5 and a quarter lol yeah thats memories yeah..,but those bring back memories anyhow. Amiga format was the way to go and the Christmas edition was always the way to go ,and yes Imagine was on the CHRISTmas Edition I got it that way too. lol er got it that anyhow.

[@tedhughes9290]

This video inspired me to make this poster. www.amiga.org/gallery/images/10949/1_Floppy_Mania.jpg

[@TheStevenWhiting]

Banned from Facebook but you can't work out why :) talking about pirating games several times in this vid is probably why. AND yes I'm well aware you're talking about the Amiga scene in the 90s. But the fools at Facebook probably assume you are talking about current pirating :) so any mention of pirating games on Facebook is probably what got the ban.

[@danwood_uk]

Steven Whiting I only made this video yesterday and the Facebook ban happened about 5 weeks ago, so unlikely. This hasn't been posted on Facebook. I have a feeling it could have been discussing the formula for retro-brite though!

[@TheStevenWhiting]

Dan Wood (kookytech.net) I didn't really me it was related to this video, I meant if this video was anything to go by, then discussions on Facebook may have been the issue. Because Facebook doesn't appear to be aware of the 80s & 90s computer scene :) And although it was wrong, the visits to the local car boot sales where you'd find a stall selling towels that was their "front" as they also had pirated games they sold. Those were the arsehole pirates, the ones that sold the games. I enjoyed floppies when we had nothing better. They now just have a nostalgic feel. I remember our lecturer at college making the mistake of telling us "Keep your floppies away from radiators as they'll damage the disk". So any time I'd not done my course work, that excuse would rear it's head :)

[@bwack]

Steven Whiting I remember all my friends who had C64 and the Amiga copied disks for free, and we always had a steady stream of new games (demos and utilities) because there would always be someone in our friends network who had contact with crackers and traders often through snail mails. Not so much downloading from BBS systems using modem. They were quite slow to download from in the beginning. We bought discs in 100 pcs bulk, or dive into containers in the industrial places where we found tossed disks. Some worked and reformatted well..

[@TheSeanBean]

Dan Wood (kookytech.net) Don't worry about mixing up a formula. I just have been using Jerome Russell Bblonde 40 VOL 12% Peroxide, which you can buy in the high street. I could not find the other stuff in shops. I've done a A1200, C64, SNES & Dreamcast. Works really well. Paint on then cover with climfilm and sit outside. Like the video. I remember having a Power Computing HD disk drive. 1.76Mb - ummmm nice. I also noticed how tapes seem to now be more reliable than disks.

[@SlavomirG]

in all honesty floppy disks were shit. you could go to a friend with 20 disks, spend a lot of time x-copying games just to go back home and find out disk 5/7 of this game is corrupt and disk 2/5 of this other game is corrupt too....so u copied 12 of this fuckers for no reason. obviously no love and nostalgia from me :P

[@mellul1701]

The good old days of floppy disks. These days they get a bad rep for their reliability, but I have to admit back in the day I didn't have much issues even with it came down to those 10 + disks adventure games. For some nostalgic reason I still have them. That being said they didn't age well , most of them just do a scary squeaky sound when I try to use them. Nowadays I use and HXC floppy drive (kinda similar to a gotek). kinda sorted that issue for good.