Crowdfunding floppy purchases?

drfsupercenter

Is there anything like this in place here?

I found a seller that has lots of unique stuff that isn't already on WinWorld. I bought one of them just to make sure the disks were legit (e.g. not IHC/VFAT-corrupted), but there are several more. These are expensive though, and while I could probably buy one every few weeks to rip for the site, I'd love it if anyone else wanted to help out. I've got the right equipment to do it.

A couple examples...

Microsoft Works 2.0 for Windows (5.25" floppy disks) (only the 3.5" versions are here)
Microsoft Office Professional v4.2 (5.25" floppy disks (same)

They also have an Office Professional v4.3, which we DO have on 5.25, but theirs has a few extra disks. Wonder what those are for?

I bought a copy of Word 6.0 for Windows on 5.25" already, got the rips ready to go except for disk 3 which had some bad sectors that I need to try to fix. Sadly it might be impossible since they're special .cab files that are 1.2MB each, not the same CAB files as the CD or 1.44MB editions.

BigCJ

No, WinWorld doesn't do anything like this. I recall from way back when I was a lurker, this same suggestion came up. Staff didn't want to be responsible for other people's money (goes with the no donation policy). Also, with as many donators as there would be, nobody would be able to agree on what to buy. One of the last posts in that thread was a lighthearted response saying that if nobody could decide what to buy, the cash would be used to cover server costs and the remainder spent on beer.

When it comes to money, Regular Users aren't trustworthy and Staff didn't want to open a messy can of worms, so to speak.

I think I got the facts straight. If not, let me know and I'll fix this post.

SomeGuy

That question came up a way while back. No, we don't do that here, basically it would be too much trouble. If any individuals want to pool their moneis, WinWorld takes no responsibility etc.

The ones you linked to, in my opinion, are not terribly expensive (although just a tad much for not including manuals). If every visitor to this site bought one single reasonable software item, eBay would probably get drained dry.

What kind of hardware do you have? If you have a Kroflux or SCP, you can throw different tools at damaged disks, and often get a successful decode. Also, 1.2mb disks can be kind of funny - sometimes they start reading BETTER after a few trys.

ibmpc5150

@drfsupercenter

If you can send dumped image with bad sector by PM, I'll try to fix it.

drfsupercenter

SomeGuy wrote:

That question came up a way while back. No, we don't do that here, basically it would be too much trouble. If any individuals want to pool their moneis, WinWorld takes no responsibility etc.

The ones you linked to, in my opinion, are not terribly expensive (although just a tad much for not including manuals). If every visitor to this site bought one single reasonable software item, eBay would probably get drained dry.

What kind of hardware do you have? If you have a Kroflux or SCP, you can throw different tools at damaged disks, and often get a successful decode. Also, 1.2mb disks can be kind of funny - sometimes they start reading BETTER after a few trys.

It's a Compaq Presario from 1996. I put a 5.25" floppy drive in there myself years later, since it didn't originally have one and I thought I'd use it as a ripping machine (after all, it has a 3.5" drive that works fine)

The exact drive I put in is from some Japanese manufacturer, I don't remember which but it's a half-height unit (e.g. same size as a CD-ROM drive, not the doubly-tall ones you used to see)

Cost me a pretty penny on eBay a few years back.