I deleted a few posts that were also off topic

Please keep posts on topic, thx.
On topic:
This is really exciting news, Dan. I envy your adventure.
Well if I'm honest I'm as terrified as excited with what is a truly exceptional project - it feels a bit like I'm tightrope walking at the moment as there is rather too much hanging in the balance in the way of unique digital artifacts that need to be transferred/imaged/backed up onto modern media before its all lost to oblivion and GDS is no more.meatballfulton wrote:Off topic:
I deleted a few posts that were also off topic![]()
Please keep posts on topic, thx.
On topic:
This is really exciting news, Dan. I envy your adventure.
I am hoping to do something very similar (if I can't get access to the original data from the US) but using the Kryoflux disk imaging system which I believe has been successfully used with 8" disk drives (eg. Shugart SA851).synthroom wrote:Here's a page with photos of the Pentium system I put together to image my 8" Fairlight floppies:
http://synthroom.com/fairlight-cmi/fair ... k-imaging/
It was not too hard to do as I was lucky that the floppy controller in my circa 1996 AT&T PC talked to a Fairlight-compatible 8" floppy drive that I bought on Ebay. (I didn't want to use one of the floppy drives out of the my IIx in case I screwed up the drive.) I bought a little Meanwell PSU to power the freestanding 8" floppy drive and I soldered together a new floppy cable/adapter to go from the 34-pin floppy cable on the PC to the 50-pin connector on the 8" floppy drive.
Then is was just a bunch of time sitting there imaging 150+ floppy disks into the PC and then converting the images with the HxC software which was the easy part since they already had the Fairlight floppy protocol programmed into the HxC software.
Con Brio ADS100?Bitexion wrote:I find these ancient digital monsters very fascinating. But I will never even see one in the real world.
There's also that synth that was famously used for effects in the first Star Trek series with 30 oscillators and a CRT screen, that cost $30k and there was only made a couple and they hardly worked at all. The name escapes me..there was a funny cartoon strip with the Pack Rat from keyboard magazine about it.
It's that mad scientist vibe where someone decides to just make it because they CAN, not because it's necessary or even likely to work well.
But the HxC can easily write new floppies in a two disk setup such as EII, Fairlight and Synergy...synthroom wrote:I have a Kryoflux as well - I've imaged about 500+ Emulator II floppies with it. I went with the ImageDisk setup for the Fairlight as I needed to output some disk images ONTO floppy, as well as image floppies into the computer. I don't think that the Kryoflux was able to do that when I looked into which way to go.
If you need help imaging, let me know. I've still got the all the stuff to do it with.
The thing that intrigues me about some of them - and the GDS / Synergy in particular - is that they offer methods of synthesis that haven't been seen since because, as Dan said, they'd still be expensive and difficult to implement.Bitexion wrote:I find these ancient digital monsters very fascinating.
True - but I didn't have an HxC in the Fairlight at the time. So I had to write images to floppies to play the disks.HideawayStudio wrote:But the HxC can easily write new floppies in a two disk setup such as EII, Fairlight and Synergy...synthroom wrote:I have a Kryoflux as well - I've imaged about 500+ Emulator II floppies with it. I went with the ImageDisk setup for the Fairlight as I needed to output some disk images ONTO floppy, as well as image floppies into the computer. I don't think that the Kryoflux was able to do that when I looked into which way to go.
If you need help imaging, let me know. I've still got the all the stuff to do it with.
This is how I made new system disks for the Synergy.
Yes - I'm just toying with the idea of using the JB's adaptor kit to fit in the GDS although I might chose to hide the HxC behind a fake disk fascia like I did on the Kaypro hooked to the Synergy - you'd never know it was there.synthroom wrote:True - but I didn't have an HxC in the Fairlight at the time. So I had to write images to floppies to play the disks.HideawayStudio wrote:But the HxC can easily write new floppies in a two disk setup such as EII, Fairlight and Synergy...synthroom wrote:I have a Kryoflux as well - I've imaged about 500+ Emulator II floppies with it. I went with the ImageDisk setup for the Fairlight as I needed to output some disk images ONTO floppy, as well as image floppies into the computer. I don't think that the Kryoflux was able to do that when I looked into which way to go.
If you need help imaging, let me know. I've still got the all the stuff to do it with.
This is how I made new system disks for the Synergy.
Now I have JB Fairlight's HxC adapter in my IIx - it's wonderful!
I'm not even sure Wendy's is operational - she has hasn't fired hers up in quite some time.tim gueguen wrote:Are any of the other GDSs still operational? Apparently Wendy Carlos still has hers running. Chris Franke of Tangerine Dream had one, which reportedly was in use until at least the Legend soundtrack, and was MIDIed at some point. I wonder where it ended up.