nuxx.net
Making, baking, and (un-)breaking things in Southeast Michigan.

Category computers

Archiving Atari 800XL Floppy Disks

April 2, 2007

I took some time today to write up information about archiving Atari 800XL floppy disks. This is as simple as copying them from an Atari 1050 to images on a PC using some special hardware and software, but I hadn’t found any this-is-what-I-did writeups, so I figured I’d do one.

After I’ve had time to sort through the images, carve out personal data, and come up with a template for the pages about the disks, I’ll make them available to others.

For now, though, feel free to read the article in its current, mostly-unedited form: http://nuxx.net/wiki_archive/A/Atari_800XL_Disk_Archiving

computerselectronicsmoved from livejournal

Atari Disk Images

March 31, 2007

Ahh. 49 disks, 81 sides (some disks only have data on a single side), two unreadable sides, and 7,466,256 bytes later I now have images of all the disks available to me on my parents’ Atari 800XL.

Now to do a bit more cataloging, sort out what contains personal data, and find a good way to post them. That bit may come another day. ;)

computerselectronicsmoved from livejournal

Atari Floppy Images

March 31, 2007

Imaging Atari floppies.

Imaging Atari floppies.

I’ve spent most of today thus far imaging floppy disks using my work laptop, an Atari 1050, an Atari 800XL (as a SIO power injector), a Universal SIO2PC Interface, and ProSystem.

I still haven’t figured out exactly how I’m going to archive and distribute them, but it’ll probably involve serially numbered disks, a page (or pages) on nuxx.net, a listing of files on each disk, bad sectors in each image, and an optical scan of each disk. There will also be scans of the different varieties of Tyvek and paper sleeves, including logos of the computer stores advertised on them.

Doing this will be a good bit of work, but then (at least) the disks will be archived.

computerselectronicsmoved from livejournal

Windows XP Restore Points

March 12, 2007

Windows XP’s restore points have saved me loads of time in troubleshooting problems with my Dad’s computer. Rolled the thing back to when I last had it and it’s fine… I’m thinking the problem is with an old version of Printmaster Deluxe which my Dad installed. (It is old enough that it didn’t show in Add / Remove Programs.)

I’m thinking that it overwrote some Windows files somehow, and Windows File Protection, for some reason, didn’t do its thing. That somehow messed up the machine, it started running slow, etc. I’ll test this tomorrow (or whenever I return the machine) by setting a restore point, installing the questionable app, inspecting things, then rolling back to the previous point if needed.

computersmoved from livejournal

Car!

March 9, 2007

Yay, I have a car again… The inside door panel still needs to be replaced, but that’ll get taken care of sometime next week. Also, the place rotated the tires for me, so I don’t need to have that done for a while.

Oh, and I seem to have resolved the internet problems by switching the APs back to Channel 1 from 11. I had changed them to 11 a week and a half ago or so, and since then the signal had been about 50% everywhere. Back on 1 and it’s nicely full.

automotivecomputersmoved from livejournal

Lightsticks In The Toilet Fallout / Digg Effect

March 4, 2007

So, earlier today I submitted my Lightsticks In The Toilet LJ Post and photo album (photo gallery retired) to the Make Blog. I had also submitted it to Digg sometime last night.

Well, it has been posted on the Make Blog, and the Digg link has really taken off. With a total of 5 fastcgi processes for myself (nuxx.net, et al) the box is sitting at a load of ~5 to ~10, and is handing out loads of data. Feel free to watch the bandwidth consumption here.

This is interesting. I’ve only had to deal with tremendous bandwidth load before (eg: hosting the SG videos, or original seed for Katrina photos), not something that actually loads the box.

I just moved the photos to nine per page (3×3) to cut down on the impact of each page load. We’ll see what happens, I guess…

computersmoved from livejournalnuxx.net

Old Hardware…

March 4, 2007

I’ve got a bunch of hardware here that I just can’t bring myself to throw out. For example, a Digi AccelePort C1 (with a REAL 16C650) which I had previously used with a 3Com ImpactIQ for ISDN network access from 1997 through 2000. There is also the first computer I bought, a Pentium 90 which I’d paid almost $3k for, with 17″ monitor. A real, made in the USA 3Com Sportster 56k x2 modem from the time before the v.34 standard was formalized, which had been subsequently flashed to v.34. Some great-for-wardriving Pentium II 300 laptops, etc.

computerselectronicsmoved from livejournal

Data Destruction

February 21, 2007


Spool from a DLT IV cartridge cut open with a bandsaw.
(Click for more Data Destruction (photo gallery retired) photos…)

While cleaning out the basement (yes, the long-awaited get-rid-of-the-crap-you-don’t-use cleaning) I came across a bunch of old magnetic media which I wanted to render unreadable. I tried a few different methods, and I think that the best is the use of a band saw. As you can see above, DLT cartridges are easily disposed of by removing the spool from the housing and cutting half-way through them with a bandsaw. This turns the whole spool of magnetic ribbon into lengths no longer than ~6 inches. When a bunch of cut tapes are mixed in a box and then tossed like a salad they can be rendered nearly irrecoverable. I don’t think even the big agencies would be too anxious to try and recover data from that.

I also cut into hard drives, from edge of drive to spindle, and in one case cut away one corner of the whole drive. Having to dispose of some ZIP disks and DATs I also sliced into portions of these with the bandsaw before tossing them. ZIP disks would be cut to the hub of the platter, and DATs straight into the side of the tape bearing the full spool until reaching the hub.

I still have to figure out a good way to dispose of lots of both pressed and burned CDs. This too may employ the bandsaw, although a bonfire would work good as well.

around the housecomputersmoved from livejournal

Spark Fun Electronics Hacked?

February 12, 2007

Hmm, I received this from what appears to actually be Spark Fun Electronics (sent from one of the servers physically near them), and the site itself is still offline:

Hello,

On February 8th, 2007 it came to our attention that someone or something gained unauthorized access to the Spark Fun Electronics server. It is highly unlikely that this person gained full access to our server data. But because there is no way for us to confirm the depth of the access, we felt it in the best interest to warn our (wonderful, wonderful) customers the server contained sensitive customer information including some credit card data. All numbers have since been removed and we are putting systems in place to better protect sensitive user information in the future.

Please check your credit card statement for any unauthorized activity. We will do everything in our power to work with you and your credit card company to investigate any discrepancies.

We truly appreciate your business and are very sorry to cause a scare. Please contact us (you can reply to this message) if you have any questions or concerns and we will address them as quickly as possible.

Best regards,
Spark Fun Electronics

—
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

UPDATE: Here’s some more info about the message… it appears to be legit:

c0nsumer@rowla:/var/log> grep "server89" maillog
Feb 12 13:36:26 rowla postfix/smtpd[50546]: connect from server89.sparkfun.com[65.58.240.213]
Feb 12 13:36:26 rowla postfix/smtpd[50546]: setting up TLS connection from server89.sparkfun.com[65.58.240.213]
Feb 12 13:36:26 rowla postfix/smtpd[50546]: TLS connection established from server89.sparkfun.com[65.58.240.213]: TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)
Feb 12 13:36:27 rowla postfix/smtpd[50546]: 180394AC23: client=server89.sparkfun.com[65.58.240.213]
Feb 12 13:36:27 rowla postfix/smtpd[50546]: disconnect from server89.sparkfun.com[65.58.240.213]
c0nsumer@rowla:/var/log>

server89.sparkfun.com is now down, and Spark Fun doesn’t publish SPF records. However, sparkfun.com is 65.58.240.188, so with a whole /25 (or less, maybe a standard /24?) they could be in the same subnet. It all appears to be in a block of colocated stuffs owned by dnssys.com who doesn’t have much of a site. Still, the email message appears to be legit…

At least there are no strange charges on the card I used there. Yet. :(

computerselectronicsmoved from livejournal