<nods> I took the effort in 2000 to convert media and burn onto CD-ROM all the data I had in old media—mostly 5¼" floppy disks in ADFS L-format—whilst I still had access to a machines that could read them and convert them to an intermediary format (3½" disk in DOS format) that the machine with the CD-ROM burner could read); also to convert BBC Micro format screenshots in GIF images.
I'm glad I did so; my father's BBC Master is now broken, leaving me with no way to port such media in future.
Now my only problem is the fact all my old programs in BBC BASIC and AMPLE are in tokenised form and unreadable, except on my (own) BBC Master. (I did start a project to convert the former, but ran out of steam after not very long.)
Something involving an emulator may be a good way to convert the BASIC programs to text form, or just to continue being able to run them if that's more important than exporting them to a modern platform.
I don't even know what AMPLE is.
I still have a pile of 3.5" floppies in wacky formats though I don't really care about the data on them any more, so I wouldn't be unhappy to find that they've bitrotted (as they may well have by now).
AMPLE (Advanced Music Programming Language Environment (or Econet)) was the music programming language for the Hybrid Music System (http://www.colinfraser.com/m5000/m5000.htm) on the BBC Micro. (It's also been implemented for RiscOS (http://www.aquitaine.demon.co.uk/).)
I got a Music 500 for my Barmitzvah in 1986, and got several albums for it on floppy disk. (One of which, "Ashes", was by the then fifteen-year-old Michael Harbour, whom I later encountered in a Part IB Biochemistry exam, and greatly embarrassed by (to my own chagrin) going into gushing fan mode.) I still listen to some of them. I also got a Music 4000 keyboard, which in the last ten years I have coupled with my Music 500, and my BBC Master (the last of Heriot-Watt University's eight-bit machines, which I caught on the way to the skip in 1998) to ensure I don't forget how to play the piano altogether.
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I'm glad I did so; my father's BBC Master is now broken, leaving me with no way to port such media in future.
Now my only problem is the fact all my old programs in BBC BASIC and AMPLE are in tokenised form and unreadable, except on my (own) BBC Master. (I did start a project to convert the former, but ran out of steam after not very long.)
no subject
Something involving an emulator may be a good way to convert the BASIC programs to text form, or just to continue being able to run them if that's more important than exporting them to a modern platform.
I don't even know what AMPLE is.
I still have a pile of 3.5" floppies in wacky formats though I don't really care about the data on them any more, so I wouldn't be unhappy to find that they've bitrotted (as they may well have by now).
no subject
I got a Music 500 for my Barmitzvah in 1986, and got several albums for it on floppy disk. (One of which, "Ashes", was by the then fifteen-year-old Michael Harbour, whom I later encountered in a Part IB Biochemistry exam, and greatly embarrassed by (to my own chagrin) going into gushing fan mode.) I still listen to some of them. I also got a Music 4000 keyboard, which in the last ten years I have coupled with my Music 500, and my BBC Master (the last of Heriot-Watt University's eight-bit machines, which I caught on the way to the skip in 1998) to ensure I don't forget how to play the piano altogether.