Spinrite - Something from the Archives

[DougCuk]

Recently came across a bit of history - a glossy printed manual for Spinrite II (ie v2) dated 1989.
It has 40 pages of detailed information and guidance for how to use Spinrite - it is titled as "A Guide for Owners - Version 1.0"

I believe my father purchased this version when he was an electronics/computer tech at a local college where he maintained the early (& cheap) Amstrad PC's. These were notorious for hard drive issues - mainly because Amstrad "upgraded" MFM hard disks with RLL controllers to get a 50% increase in disk capacity - at the expense of reliability.

I continued the family connection with Spinrite and computers and purchased my own copy of v4 while working my first full time computer tech job - and have subsequently upgraded to v5 and then v6. I get to collect my state pension next year and trust both Steve and my self will both get to see Spinrite v7 before we are too old to care any more. Anyone else have a similar long history with Spinrite?

 

[PHolder]

Anyone else have a similar long history with Spinrite?

I have a history in the BBS business, as a member of a larger business. We (the group owning it all) hosted our first BBS on an *actual* IBM AT. It had a huge 8 inch Winchester HDD in it, I forget the size, but it wasn't much more than 120MB (yes MB not GB.) We were a member of FIDONET and got shareware and other content that would draw in more paying users for the BBS. (Ok, yes, I admit that the first porn I ever saw in my life was a very low res "animated" "GRASP" file. That file format was created by AutoCAD, but I don't think they ever expected it to be used on an MGA screen to display dithered monochrome porn.)

Anyway, one of the partners somehow ended up with a copy of SpinRite 1.0 on a floppy drive. In my memory it was legit with a label and everything, but it might well have been pirated and I was just never told. In any case I remember it being used only once, to optimize that HDD. But along with the memories of my issues of Boardwatch magazine, of TBBS and TDBS and of ridiculously large phone bills, I have never forgotten my first encounter with SpinRite.