Conversation

Notices

1. Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Jan-2025 09:49:54 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

   The Floppy Disk drawers of Babel

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Jan-2025 09:50:55 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     it's semi-infinite library containing one 3.5" floppy disk for every possible combination of 11,796,480 bits (1.44mb).

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Jan-2025 09:54:55 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     See this article for the dangers of having Every File:

     https://everything2.com/title/Converting+Pi+to+binary%253A+Don%2527t+do+it%2521

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Jan-2025 09:56:21 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     also yes this means that the library doesn't contain 1-to-1 copies of DD disks, everything GCR formatted (HI OLD MACS!), and DMF formatted disks. I'm sorry, you can't install Windows 95 from the Floppy Disk Drawers of Babel

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Jan-2025 09:57:19 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     but figuring out how many bits you need to represent EVERY floppy is above my paygrade, so it's left as an exercise for the reader.

   • Ryan Baumann (ryanfb@digipres.club)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Jan-2025 10:00:27 JST Ryan Baumann

     in reply to

     @foone unfortunately, the closer you look at floppies the more you realize the cosmic horror that they don’t have “bits” at all

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Jan-2025 10:01:03 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     • Ryan Baumann

     @ryanfb yeah, they're analog! like everything when you look too closely

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Jan-2025 10:01:38 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     • Fi 🏳️‍⚧️

     @munin no sorry, you have to go find the exact disk

   • Fi 🏳️‍⚧️ (munin@infosec.exchange)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Jan-2025 10:01:39 JST Fi 🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     @foone

     I'm feeling lazy; can't I just

     `dd bs=11796480 if=/dev/random of=/tmp/babelfloppy`

     in a loop for a while? I don't wanna deal with changing disks.

   • John Francis (johnefrancis@cosocial.ca)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Jan-2025 10:05:42 JST John Francis

     in reply to

     @foone only weighs 2.5B metric tons. Mostly garbage, but there's going to be some great stuff in there...

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Jan-2025 10:05:42 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     • John Francis

     @johnefrancis I think you're miscalculating. It's not 11.7 million floppies, it's 2^11796480, which is a Big Number