User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Sun Mar 26, 2017 3:07 pm

I still use Commodore hardware rather than emulators. Sure, it's probably a little eccentric, but that's how I roll as do several people who read and contribute to this site. And when it comes to games, I generally try very hard to play the games as they were originally designed to be played. It's not necessarily better but it's what I prefer to do.

During the early years (pre-1990), when Commodore was still healthy, many games were required to be played directly off of floppy disks. Many game developers recommended making backups to be used for playing the games and to store the originals for safe keeping. And at the very least these days, quite often ADFs found online need to be transferred to floppy DF0: drives.

I still follow this practice on an almost weekly basis in some form or fashion.

For example: last week I transferred 3 disks to floppy in order to play Desert Strike. I also created a Commissioner's Disk for Earl Weaver Baseball (I started created a 2016 Cubs team by hand. Whew!). And I created a backup of my Workbench 1.3 disk for storage. Last week was a pretty typical week in terms of disk usage.

Of course, this means I need a pretty steady supply of Double-Sided Double Density 880KB disks (2S2D or DSDD). I typically will buy NOS shrink-wrapped disks off Ebay about once every 12-18 months. If you buy a single box of 10 disks, you're going to pay out the nose. These often run between $12-17 per box or more plus shipping cost. Not great.

What I do is buy in bulk. Every now and then you'll find someone trying to unload several boxes all at once, and this often gets the price to $1 per disk, or even cheaper. The last bundle I got was 4 boxes of (blue) Memorex disk for $40 with free shipping. That's not too bad in my opinion.

But it does make me wonder - does anyone have a better/cheaper source for buying "new", never used and carefully stored boxes of disks?
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Who knew boxes of blank disks at the ready could create such a feeling of calm and sense of security? I shouldn't need any more for at least a year, I think.

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DSDD or 2S2D Boxes of Memorex disks, ready to be awakened from their 30 year long slumber.

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You really feel like you've scored when your new boxes of blanks are actually blue in color!

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NOS boxes of floppies also come with never used disk labels. They don't always have the greatest sticking power anymore, but sometimes they do.


User avatar
Zippy Zapp
CA, USA

Posted Tue Mar 28, 2017 9:28 am

I get disks from my closet. :lol: Over the years I have bought them when they were cheap and just kept throwing them in the closet in boxes. I think last I checked I had about 40 - 60 unopened boxes of 3.5" DSDD disks, and about 60 boxes of 5.25" DSDD disks. I guess i need to start using these. :lol: Some of them I bought new in the early 90's

Yeah occasionally I will run into a case of (10) 10 packs for really cheap ($30- $50) and I would buy them. I don't really now because I have a store in my closet! I also have 100's of used disks that have been in storage for years. I haven't gone through them yet but if they format ok and pass error scan in say XCopy they should be ok.

I have purchased from floppydisk.com too. Prices are about $1 a piece. They are really good to deal with.

But yeah they have gone up a lot in the past few years.

As an example this is a very good brand disk and at the time these were considered premium:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/290536442078

A few years ago they used to be sold for about $20 for (3) 10 packs. I bought a few of them. Now $30 for 1 pack which is just a straight up rip off.

Shoot for the deals!

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Tue Mar 28, 2017 9:34 am

ZippyZapp:
40 - 60 unopened boxes
Holy smoke!

I have about that many new, never used disks, not boxes. That's amazing! Are you sure you're not the owner of floppydisk.com? :)

Yeah, I've been keeping an eye out for larger batches. When you get into the range of 6-10 boxes, the prices seem to be closer to .50 / disk. When I got my most recent batch (above) it was $1/disk, which seems about as good as it gets for small quantities. Buying one box at a time really is a rip off, as you said.

I do worry about disk rot, but there's nothing we can really do about that as far as I know, other than doing your best to keep things in dry storage. Luckily I don't live in a humid area, as I'd think that would make things a lot worse.

User avatar
Zippy Zapp
CA, USA

Posted Tue Mar 28, 2017 9:50 am

LOL. I wish I owned floppydisk.com

Yeah I worry about disk rot too. The nice thing is that in the late 80's early 90's many companies went to an anti-mold/mildew moisture resistant media so hopefully that helps. Well it helps the problem when it is caused by moisture, it doesn't help deterioration from flakes coming off the disk. So far, though, that has been minimal and I have identified the brands were it is likely and steer clear of them. (Mainly early 3M SSDD and some off shoot brands that were obviously manufactured by 3M at the time. Verbatim, Memorex, Imation, Dysan, BASF were all premium brands and IIRC they had coated disks with teflon or some other such stuff to enhance durability.

If I do have an opened box I make sure I put some desiccant pouches in there to help keep the moisture at bay. I litter these things in all my boxes of disks, software, etc even in my disk cases where I keep my software. I don't know if it helps but it can't hurt. You can get these on ebay for cheap.

The only type of disks I don't have a ton of are 3.5" HD disks. I probably only have about 30 (10) packs or so. Most of those i found in my Mom and dad's cabinet when I was cleaning it out a few years ago. Haha.

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Tue Mar 28, 2017 10:06 am

desiccant pouches
That is a REALLY good idea.

I should throw those in my storage boxes, too, and even where I store some of my unused hardware.

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Fri Apr 07, 2017 10:43 am

While sitting on the beach yesterday I ran across an intriguing auction on EBay: a crate of 10 never opened boxes of DD floppy disks for $100 "or Best Offer".

I offered $83 and he accepted.

My attitude has always been disks should be less than $1 each for it to make sense. The closer you get to .50/ea the better. IIRC these boxes cost about $17-$20 each back in the day when everyone else was buying them and actually using them.

Plus, 10 boxes? That should last a good long time when added to my other recent haul. I'm not even close to ZippyZapp's stash, but I'm good enough! :)

FWIW, I think this guy had 3 more crates. I might could have offered even less.

<3

User avatar
Zippy Zapp
CA, USA

Posted Fri Apr 07, 2017 11:29 am

That's cool! I am always tempted by 100 packs for 3.5" disks but I think I better not. I am running out of closet space! :lol:

User avatar
bakkers

Posted Thu Apr 11, 2019 11:39 am

I'm looking to buy som disks for my old Amiga 500. A lot of the disk i have now are not working anymore.

So i'm looking on the site https://www.floppydisk.com/ but not sure what i should buy for my Amiga 500?

Hopefully someone here can help me in the right direction

Best Regards
Thomas

User avatar
Zippy Zapp
CA, USA

Posted Thu Apr 11, 2019 11:49 am

For Amiga you want 3.5" DSDD or Double-sided, Double-Density AKA 720K (formatted, IBM) or 1MB (unformatted). You do not want to use High-Density or DSHD disks. If they are formatted for IBM or Mac that is fine too you can just format them for Amiga.

User avatar
bakkers

Posted Thu Apr 11, 2019 9:55 pm

So if i buy these it will work? :D

Best Regards
Thomas
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