Posted on 07/11/2018 8:44:09 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
I just looked at Amazon and other places, still selling them but at expensive prices (like $70 and up). I've got 6 or 8 players. Also Zip drives. Hundreds of Jaz and Zip cartridges. I should open a store. I get stuff at recyclers, for pennies on the dollar. Jaz players cost me a couple bucks each. People are constantly throwing out stuff as they upgrade, so one doesn't need to buy new. Local recyclers sell stuff cheap before it goes to the dumps. I've bought vintage computer stuff cheap this way. One purchase was 14 iMacs for about $100. Resold half and recouped costs, keeping the best. Wife has been after me to whittle down my collection, reluctantly selling much. Had bought a box of 16 motherboards for $10 total, sold one for over $300. People throw away stuff that's pure gold to others, in their quest to keep current with newer technology. I don't need the money, I like playing with vintage stuff, including cars and furniture. But vintage computer stuff is a whole different thing. This conversation reminds me, I need to convert a Betamax tape of my kids.
I donated most of my old PCs to work and I have a happy wife. Lol. Funny to see some of the equipment on the line and in the IT closet with my son's Sponge Bob Square Pants stickers. Glad that the old PCs are being used.
Is there valuable data stored on your Jaz disks? Or the more specific question: how long will the data last on the disks? If you do have valuable files, you should probably move them to your NAS drive. I don't have to tell you this of course. You know. :)
There may come a time in the distant future, when people will be looking for the Jaz drives and will pay a pretty penny for them. Or the means to get the data off of the disks. Of course, they will probably be plentiful on Ebay even 20 years from now.
Betamax? — convert it as soon as possible. The tape doesn't have a long shelf life! Let me know if you need recommendations for how to get it from tape to your computer.
I have an old higher end VHS player that I will keep forever. It has come in handy a couple of times for converting old videos to modern formats.
A few years back, I converted a reel-to-reel audio recording of my inlaws wedding vows. I didn't have a reel-to-reel player laying around so I hunted around and I found a place that had one. So there is a demand for the old equipment. Interesting that the tape was still in good shape after 50 years. The tape was well taken care of.
Some observations about the different media types and long term reliability and data integrity.
Jaz? — unknown.
Floppy disks — okay.
Recordable CDS (both write once and rewritable). — very poor. Suspect that writable DVDs are the same. That probably includes Bluray. Store them in a dark (no UV), cool place to extend the life.
Magneto Optical — very, very good. Surprising. Disks from dads old MO drive were still readable after 23 years.
Hi8 tapes. 20-30 years max. Some of my 30 year old tapes are not in good shape. Glad that I transferred them to my NAS.
VHS/Betamax tapes. 20-30 years max.
Ink Jet printed pictures — poor. There may be different grades of printers. Places do offer old tech style prints (processed/silver prints). The color dye in old style prints will fade but the black and white photo will last a very long time if stored out of the sun (in a dark, cool place).
Vintage stuff? Cool. I have a 1929 Ford. Long story but it doesn't run well on the ethanol based gasoline.
I had pretty much given up on that a few decades ago, but maybe I'll try now. A friend (long expired) recorded my daughter playing with his daughter at his house, and transferred the video to a Betamax tape (along with a Star Wars TV special of an Ewoks movie, so valuable right). My friend had questionable taste in hardware, having a Betamax recorder and Laserdisc players, both didn't last long in the hardware wars. Would be interesting to recover the video of my young daughter (now grown with her own kids).
No valuable data on my Jaz or other old media, long since copied off. I no longer use the old floppy discs unless playing with the old machines. I have an original Apple II Revision 0 computer (1977) that I converted to run off USB sticks and CompactFlash cartridges, and have many thousands of Apple II programs on USB and CF - instant use of any program and no floppy necessary. Also wrote my own EPROM with utilities and custom boot. Have done other mods to later vintage machines. I know, weird hobby but I have good memories of writing code on micros and it was fun back then.
There is a fan base for vintage stuff, and I deal with others. So yes, people do value this stuff same as with other collectibles, and values are climbing. Not enough to get rich on, but that should never be the basis for any hobby. People complain about the high cost of computers, they don't realize that it cost much more back in the 70's and 80's. For instance 8MHz PC's costing $3,000 and up (I bought one), and 20MB hard drives for $300 (my boss complained that he spent more for his 10MB hard drive the year before, this was mid-80's). People were casually buying $5G to $10G PC's. No one should complain about the costs now, much cheaper when you factor in inflation because the dollar lost most of its value since the 80's/
You should be able to rent a player or buy one. It is worth the effort as your tapes might still be good.
Actually, Betamax was supposed to be the better format. I remember the discussion when HD DVD and Bluray were competing formats. Sony and Bluray won this time so maybe it was a little redemption for Sony after Betamax.
Wow. Cool stuff. Make sure that you Will your stuff to one of the computer museums. They might be interested in it.
Our first computer was a 286 Epson Equity II+. It cost us $2000 and we had to finance it. But it was perfect since my wife, in college at the time, could work on her papers late into the night safe and warm in our apartment. It was a good investment.
Apple. I used a IIe and Word Star to write my papers in college. Like I said, my dad has always been an Apple fan. All the way back to the mid 80s.
No doubt, Apple have been innovative and technological leaders. Their devices are always well designed both software and hardware. One of the companies that I worked for designed SCSI RAID controllers and host adapters. Just can afford them.
“Except for those of us who have years of ripped music. Do not want to have to pull out the CDs again! Nor do I want to pay Apple $2000 for the songs that I already have... 2000 songs x 0.99 each.”
iTunes Match, for $25/yr., scans your iTunes library and allows you to download a 256Kb AAC version no matter where your original file came from. It’s like money laundering for MP3s. The record labels apparently decided that a little money is better than none for all those songs folks got from Napster back in the day and are still listening to.
The AAC files are DRM-free, so you could pay for a year, take your time converting songs, and cancel. It was worth it for me not to have to re-rip all the CDs I ripped at 128 back when storage space was scarce (not to mention the songs from various and sundry other places).
Thanks. I’ll check it out. Still prefer mp3 because it is well supported.
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