Originally published at: L.A. Public Library now has a DIY lab for digitizing old media like VHS tapes and floppy disks | Boing Boing
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I assume by “digitizing 3.5” disks” (which are, um, already digital) they mean they have some PCs set up with floppy drives so you can transfer to thumb drives or something? I doubt they have an Amiga or Apple IIgs handy.
As a retrocomputing preservation enthusiast, I have to take some exception to this. Floppies are not a generic data format that can just be “digitized” like a video tape. They don’t even all have the same flux format, so not all drives can read all disks of the same physical format. Some floppies are MFM and some are GCM. Once you get past that, you have to deal with copy protection. Either you have to crack it, which loses a lot of the history and experience of the stuff on the disk, or you have to do a deeper flux-level capture. The gold standard for this used to be Cryoflux, but it’s been superseded by the AppleSauce (which handles many systems, despite the name). Even Cryoflux can’t handle copy-protected Apple II disks, for example, which rely on things like half and quarter tracking, spiral tracking, weak bits, etc. Preserving these requires an algorithmic format. People typically think it’s enough to capture all the magnetic flux transitions on the disk and that would have to be enough, right? Well it isn’t, because many copy protections rely on the randomness of unwritten flux elements on the disk, for example. You have to have an algorithmic capture format to support this kind of thing, and AppleSauce is the only capture device that does it.
But sure, it’s nice that the library has some PCs with 3.5” floppy drives in them, I guess.
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This is a great idea.
I had a bunch of weird old VHS tapes I finally got rid of when I moved that I always wanted to save as some other kind of video file. Lots of weird homemade videos, collections of random public access shows and adverts. If something like this had been available I would have saved that stuff and made it available on youtube.
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Ok, I admit you had me going there at first but now I see that you’re just making up a string of silly meaningless tech words. Well done!
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Sounds like they need to add an atomic force microscope with a ‘git gud’ sticker to the lab; just to cover the edge cases.
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That’s a great video. There’s a logarithmic increase in the absurdity over the course of the video…
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Back in the day, early 1998-ish, was converting my Simpsons VHS tapes to VCD, and editing the commercials out during the process. I revisited those VHS tapes not too long ago and the best thing are the commercials from East Lansing, MI circa the 90s. That, and I miss the “thunderstorm watch/warning” and “tornado watch” news alerts, as we don’t really get those in Portland, OR.
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My dad has a pile of MiniDV tapes that have all my stop-motion animations I made a kid (early 90s). I’d love to get those converted, they represent a not-insignificant amount of my pre-teen to teen free time and creative output.
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I taped every Simpsons episode back in the early 90’s, commercials and all, then one day lent them to a friend who had never seen the show.
He returned the tapes, “hey I did you favor and dubbed them removing the commercials.”
He didn’t understand why I was so pissed. I knew those vintage ads would be gold one day, a weird peek into a lost era.
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Yep, video time capsules of days gone by, now permanently gone in your case. 
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I love the textbook Riker Sit at the start of that scene. 
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Doing it somewhat properly.
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Hey, I just looked it up and they have equipment for digitizing super-8 home movies too. Neat!
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This just reminds me I haven’t visited the internet K-hole in a while.
(Sample timeline: wow the 70s were weird [$repeat for 80s/90s/etc.], Sweet car!, Man, festivals used to be better, do I *know those weird goths?, Was I at that embarrassing house party, or were we all the same everywhere? /Go To Start)
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I have a drawer full of home movies on VHS from the mid 80s until around mid 90s. Way back then I learned early on that most full length video tapes only ever got used for 10 minutes or so. I went to a local video house and bought bulk loaded 20 minute tapes, made cataloging them much easier. I’m slowly transferring them to mp4s. It has gotten way easier from the days of having to use firewire IEEE 1394 but it’s still realtime for the capture.
Back in the late 90s early 00s I recorded 4 years of high school musicals for our daughter. These were 3 camera shoots with some quality Sony Digital 8 cameras. Those were all edited and recorded to VHS or DVD. Every once in a while I pull them out and post the bloopers to Facebook, it was a very small school and everyone still keeps in touch.
I also have a bunch of Mini DV home movie tapes but the camera no longer works, I keep meaning to buy one so I can do something with those. Problem with those is without firewire you have to transfer them with analog hookups. I think I have a firewire card somewhere. Mini DV players only are pricey if you can find them. I really should send those out to someone.
For a while, before it was easy for the average person to transfer VHS I would do it but man, watching other people’s home movies, especially when they refuse to pause and tape an entire baby shower or birthday party or vacation, is painful. I eventually told them I would transfer the entire thing to DVD and a file but I would not even try to edit.
It was always funny to see they reused tapes or taped a soap opera or hockey game at the end of a family tape.
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I just think of all my unlabeled VHS tapes that I never bothered to convert because I didn’t feel like taking the time to figure out what was on them.
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Right? I mean everybody knows it’s KyroFlux. (/s even though it really is with a “K”, but as a fellow retrocomputing enthusiast I can confirm that everything @VeronicaConnor said is 100% correct.)
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Or you can transfer to SD card and apply one of these stickers, just for the aesthetic.
They’re sold out at Adafruit, but a quick search turned up some imitators on Etsy.
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