Click Art on Floppy disks

I just found a cache of 1.44 floppy disks with my old Click Art images on it. I want to copy those images on to a CD. I have a G4 PowerBook, running 10.4; a MacBook Pro running 10.5; and an Intel iMac running 10.6.

I have a LacIe floppy disk reader. I know that the iMac and MBP won't read the floppies. I tried the PowerBook and the floppies did not show up on the desk top. Does anyone have a suggestion or a solution to get the images off the floppies?

Jane

So what exactly is that LaCie Floppy good for??

Anyway, you're going to need to buy a USB floppy drive that's Mac compatible, and then pray that the floppies aren't 800K (nothing reads those anymore).

It should be noted that these art images are VERY VERY likely to be very low-quality and very low-resolution: are you SURE you want them enough to go through this much trouble? It's not like there's no other sources of clip art ...

Keep in mind that most any USB external floppy drive will work just fine with your Mac, however, the drive will not show up (mount) on the desktop until you put a floppy in it.

I have an inexpensive Sony USB floppy drive that I use with my machines and it works well. But as chas mentioned if you have 800K floppies, they probably will not be able to be read. And as far as older clip art goes, he's also right about that. I've got a ton of it left over from years and years in Windows, and it's pretty much useless.

chas_m said:

So what exactly is that LaCie Floppy good for??

Anyway, you're going to need to buy a USB floppy drive that's Mac compatible, and then pray that the floppies aren't 800K (nothing reads those anymore).

It should be noted that these art images are VERY VERY likely to be very low-quality and very low-resolution: are you SURE you want them enough to go through this much trouble? It's not like there's no other sources of clip art ...

Click to expand...

Chas, the LaCie is Mac compatible. 800k floppies have only 1 hole in the right corner, correct? If that is right, then I was trying to load one of them.

The other floppies i have are from a commercial program called ClickArt. They are EPS formatted images. Those floppies have 2 holes and have HD imprinted on the disks. Would these be 1.44 floppies?

I will try one of them in the PowerBook and see what happens.

Jane

The other floppies i have are from a commercial program called ClickArt. They are EPS formatted images. Those floppies have 2 holes and have HD imprinted on the disks. Would these be 1.44 floppies?

Click to expand...

They're 1.44 MB if they have two holes, one on each side. I have the same program but it's on one CD instead of floppies, and yes they're all EPS. You can use them on your Mac but the quality is lacking.

chscag said:

They're 1.44 MB if they have two holes, one on each side. I have the same program but it's on one CD instead of floppies, and yes they're all EPS. You can use them on your Mac but the quality is lacking.

Click to expand...

I remember last century I made 1.44's from 800's by drilling the second hole in the disks. I don't know if that would allow the drives to read them or if formatting would be necessary in which case would defeat the purpose.

I even remember some computer stores selling a special punch that would make the second hole. At that time you could buy a load of the low density floppies much cheaper than you could the high density ones.

To show what a rat pack I am, just two months ago I cleaned out my computer junk closet and threw away about 500 floppies, a load of iOmega disks, and a box of tapes.