MSB - "Most Significant Bits" or" Museum Service Bureau"

From: Nico de Jong <nico_at_farumdata.dk>
Date: Fri Jan 2 07:59:00 2004

Hi all

In a conversation with Curt Vendel regarding a Shaffstall adapter he needed,
I offered him something else for the purpose.
This offer has now evolved into something quite different, on which I would
like to year your collective opinion.

As most of you know, my interest is in media conversion, and not in
collecting as such. I very often see posts like "I need to read so and so,
who can help me".

What I now suggest, is that we create two non-profit non-commercial
"organisations" or "service bureau" or what you want to call it, one for
everything west of the Atlantic, and one for the everything east. The
purpose of these bureaus should be to assist collectors in copying software
and data while the media are still readable on the hardware available. The
reason for splitting it in two, are (1) freight and customs handling (xrays
etc...) and (2) many european systems never made it to the US, or have been
scrapped years ago. Examples are systems like Regnecentralen, Rovsing, Norsk
Data, Philips PTS, and others you probably never even heard of.

To start with, I can offer the use of my (company) service bureau, as
described on www.farumdata.dk/enserv.htm

I have been thinking on the financial side too. We will without a doubt be
forced to buy hardware sometimes, e.g. via eBay, partly because things _can_
and _will_ break sometimes, and partly because the range of drives is to be
enlarged.. It is only fair that these costs are coverd by the users of the
service bureau. So, what I was thinking of, is a fee of maybe 3-4 Euros (4 -
5 US$) per floppy, and a bit more for a streamer. Plus P & P.
In case of Operating Systems, patches, or other files which could be
interesting for other collectors, a weekly or monthly CD could be sent off
to e.g. Jay West, for inclusion in his archival system.

Your comments would be appreciated

Happy NewYear to all of you

Nico
Received on Fri Jan 02 2004 - 07:59:00 GMT