Hi fellow classiccmp'ers, seeking help for the head of our local HAM club chapter, who bought an EPROM programmer (Dobbertin 4003) complete with the associated PC interface card, at an estate sale. After some rummaging through moldy cardboard boxes of media in a damp basement, we were even able to come up with a 5 1/4" floppy labeled as holding the associated (presumably DOS based) driver/software. A quick look on the media surface however revealed a multitude of tarnished spots that look to me like fungus growth. Having read about dirt and fungus on media, moisture causing sticky shed syndrome, cleaning and baking procedures and the like here, but not yet having gone through it myself (and thus afraid to botch it if I tried it), I asked him not to read the floppy on his own right now but let me ask for help.
Best bet would probably be if an experienced media rescuer, ideally within Germany for ease of shipping, could be cajoled or bribed (with a reasonable amount of course) into having a look at that floppy and trying to read the contents. Except of course be if someone already had the driver software available :-) One probably also needs the manual as I've read there is a memory address selection feature on the interface and you need to supply the correct address to the driver upon installation. Yours sincerely, TIA & vy 73 Arno // DO4NAK
