Recovering data from 200 floppy disks owned by the creator of Star Trek

Roddenberry's computer (currently not working) and its floppy disks (photo: DriveSavers)

DriveSavers recently published a press release according to which the company's employees were able to recover data from approximately 200 old diskettes. This would not have been anything remarkable if it weren’t for the fact that the media belonged to Star Rodk creator Gene Roddenberry . Floppy disks were kept all the time after Roddenberry’s death. The recovered information was provided to him; nothing was uploaded to the Network.

However, DriveSavers reports that the author’s notes were on floppy disks; he used them to save ideas, scripts, and notes. The volume of each diskette was 160 KB, and they were used for the last time somewhere in the 80s of the last century.

An interesting history of data recovery. Thus, 5.25-inch floppy disks were discovered by the heir several years after the death of Roddenberry. The creator of Star Trek usually used a typewriter, but with the development of computer technology, he began to use two custom PCs with a custom operating system. An ordinary personal computer was purchased by him shortly before his own death.

Floppy disks were used to save information on custom PCs with their own OS. In this case, one of the computers was sold at auction, and the second is no longer working. To recover data, the author’s heir sent the floppy disks to the aforementioned company, which spent three months writing software with which the disks were subsequently read. Interestingly, neither the instructions for the PC, nor any other documentation about the computer with which the author worked and his OS was preserved.

Perhaps after some time some information will get on the Web.

By the way, this year Star Trek is already 50 years old! Time goes by very quickly.