is a disk system worth it.

[crade]

So how long will a disk system last?

I would say longer, than modern systems.

So..  does this mean if I bought a 20 year old disk system and a brand new ps3, the disk system will outlast the ps3, or
does it mean the disk system will last 20 years and 5 months (leaving about 5 months remaining) which is longer than the PS3 will last since 21 years from now it won't work anymore...

[NintendoKing]

I am interested in owning a FDS one day, as there are good games for it.

[crade]

I like the disk system, but I am concerned about reliability.  Mostly about the disks rather than the system..  I remember floppy disks dying on me all over the place and basically none of my original floppy disks still work so I have little faith in that type of technology.

I haven't had any problems yet, though but at this point I wouldn't be willing to invest big bucks in a disk system game, thats for sure.

[crade]

^ Sure, everyone knows how to look after floppies but all that does is lower the probability of them failing from 10%/year of age to 5%/year of age..

[Protoman]

I think since most FDS disks come in cases they would last longer.. I remember having those 3.5mm disks for PC just laying all over the place. Sure they had those dust cover things(like the blue fds disks) but still a case would have been better, right?

[ericj]

Learn how to rewrite them and problem solved (at least until the media itself is degraded).

[crade]

Learn how to rewrite them and problem solved (at least until the media itself is degraded).

I guess..  It's not a matter of learning.. Just of getting the right equipment, If it's rewritten it isn't original anymore anyway which makes me even less willing to spend any significant coin on fds games.. lol

At the point when you are just playing with rewritten stuff, I may has well just write onto whatever disks I have that aren't broken, at which point I'd be better off just to find a way to skip the disks as media entirely imo.

[ulera]

You can rewrite disc system games?

[ericj]

If it's rewritten it isn't original anymore anyway which makes me even less willing to spend any significant coin on fds games.. lol

Actually, unless it's sealed, you have no idea if a game is rewritten or not. 

[crade]

If it's rewritten it isn't original anymore anyway which makes me even less willing to spend any significant coin on fds games.. lol

Actually, unless it's sealed, you have no idea if a game is rewritten or not. 

That was exactly my point

[ulera]

So how easy is it to rewrite a game that has gone kapoot?

[GohanX]

Yes and no. The actual act of rewriting a disk is easy, getting the hardware setup is a bit more tricky. You need an old parallel port computer, a modified FDS system if you have a model with copy protection, and a homemade cable (can also be bought at Tototek.) If you are interested, go to ericj's site, the link is in his sig. It has everything you need to know, I probably wouldn't have figured it out without it.

I've had good luck with the games I've bought. I've only had two disks that gave disk errors, but they weren't actually damaged so I was able to write the original games to them just fine.

[ulera]

That's cool. Could you use this method to make famicom discs into makeshift flash carts?

(Obviously it'd be a stupid thing to do, I'm just curious if it's possible.)

[HokusaiXL]

I'm sure it's possible to hack a cart game to FDS format.  It'd take some wok naturally.

[ulera]

Well it looks like im gonna find out