Even this isn't really a games question, I thought C&CG may be the best place.

I have discovered some 5 1/4" floppies. Any thoughts how I could read these disks cheaply? Even if I find a drive, would Vista support the drivers to operate the thing?

Thanks.

 

find a PC with XP or earlier OS. just hook up a floppy drv and try it. not sure

 

my bad, I was thinking about the 3.5 floppies. you need win 95 or older

 

Most likely wont be readable anyway. There is a shelf life to floppy disks. A couple of years I believe... After that they are DOA

 

Actually it can be done, depends on your motherboard's BIOS.

 

I have disks from the late 80's that still work

 

Resume from 1994?

 

My first PC was a Packard Bell that only used 5 1/4" floppies. Once I got older I was wondering the same thing as you, but in the end I found all the old game files on the Internet and use DOSBox to run them. Looking back I wish I would've kept that thing, but that's another story


Not sure what type of info you're looking to get off of them though.

 

if you have a drive, you can get 7 to read it, google a bit there's a hack.

and if it's dos programs (most likely) dosbox is your best bet at getting them running again.

I have a 3.5in floppy on my current rig I've lately been running 3.1 and all of my websites (azine, blackboard etc.) in text form on the text browser...it's dumb and images load into paint but it's really quick and lots of fun

p.s. i'm doing it now haha

 

OP, you already beat Contra. Find a new game.