I admit I've got boxes upon boxes full of old 3.5" floppy disks and VHS tapes that I'm hesitant to simply throw out because of the memories that these outdated physical media formats contain. I finally decided it was time to recover their contents (and my memories) and get rid of the junky old tech, and so should you!
Floppy Disks
I've got stacks and stacks of floppy disks that I refuse to throw away for nostalgia's sake. Not simply because they're floppy disks but rather they're chock full of digital memories, from old English essays to photos and personal files — all stuck on a medium that's been long dead. I've ordered myself a USB floppy disk drive for only $20, and once I've copied all my files off the disks I can not only save the physical space and chuck them into the trash, but also relive the past with the accessible files.
VHS Tapes
There are plenty of online companies that will transfer your tapes for you, but at a price. Local stores charge an arm and a leg it seems. if you have a lot of tapes you can buy a USB VCR, but that's still a hefty chunk of change. If you've already got a video card that can capture video, then simply plug in your old VCR to your computer and capture away. Otherwise, you can buy a cheap one online or an external device that's fairly inexpensive. Either way, that's a lot of family reunion footage ready for YouTube.
DVD & Other Such Media
It's not just floppies and VHS tapes, there's BETA tapes and DVDs and cassettes and all sorts of technologies that have been put out to pasture. Save yourself the torment and save your files and toss the tapes.
MORE ON CONVERTING OLD FORMATS TO DIGITAL FROM APARTMENT THERAPY:
• Converting a DVD Collection
• Good Questions: Importing Mini-Cassettes To Digital
• How to: Two Ways to Convert Your Vinyl Collection to Digital Formats
• Ion USB Cassette Deck Helps Save Your Mixtapes
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I just had all my family home movies (VHS and 8mm) transferred to DVD at Costco. It wasn't very expensive at all, and they did a great job.
I just visited my grandparents (I now live in a different country, so it was a long-awaited visit home), and found that their old giant reel-to-reel audiotape player still more or less worked. When I was a little girl, I used to beg Grandpa so often to read to me, that he recorded himself reading my favourite stories on these big audio cassettes - so I could listen to the cassettes when he was busy, and he could get some work done. I LOVED the way he read those stories, and it's amazing that the tape survived multiple playthroughs by little-me.
The old machine has some speed issues now, and the rewind button didn't work, but I set the laptop with a microphone and Audacity in front of it, and recorded what I could. Some of it was stuck on chipmunk-voice-speed mode, so I had to dial the speed down 50% to be able to hear it normally. I'm so glad that I have MP3s of these files now. The audio quality isn't the greatest, sure a professional studio could have done a better job - but they're there, and I can listen to them again! The machine was already on its last legs with its various issues, who knows if it would still work later on? And perhaps one day I could play them to my future children, so they can hear the same stories...
My Dad's project when he visits home next, will be to dig up the old video reel-to-reel projector and see if the old video reels are still playable - and to record them using his camera into digital video... his own childhood memories from so many years ago.
In a word, YES, digitise all your analog memories! But MAKE BACKUPS. We don't even know if DVDs of today will be readable in 10 years' time.
@NADYAN that's incredible I'm glad you were able to save your grandfather's readings!