Public Domain Software On File or PDSOF Archive

[Dog Cow]

Awhile back, someone posted a message on comp.sys.apple2 asking if anyone had made an archive of the Public Domain Software On File collection:

NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2007 16:02:56 -0600

Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2007 16:01:24 -0600

From: SlickRCBD

Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2

Subject: PDSOF archive

Message-ID:

Back around 20-15 years ago, my local library used to have some public

domain disks from an organization called "Public Domain Software On

File" or PDSOF. Is there an archive on the internet with disk images or

.sdks of that old collection, and hopefully a text file with the catalog

of which image contains what programs? I'd like to revisit a couple of

programs that were lost from that collection.

About a month ago, I searched around for this particular item, and sent a request for it via Inter-library loan. I am happy to say that this collection has finally arrived, and I have it on the desk in front of me right now-- 20 5.25" diskettes containing 200+ programs.

Now, I have not had a chance to look at any of the disks yet (that is, stick them in my Apple)! I will do that later this evening. My eventual goal is to make .dsk images of all 20 disks, or as many disks which are still readable after all of these years. In doing so, this will likely be the first time that this legendary PD software collection has ever been available on the net.

I will, of course, post results and the disk image files as soon as I am able!

 

[Twilight_Rodent]

Hi,

Some of them will require integer basic or maybe Dos 3.2 to boot up. I am surprised that they still have them. They usually purge old things in favor of newer items. Where abouts is this ?

Take Care

 

[Dog Cow]

Status: There are 22 disks, 11 of which I was able to make into .shk archives. The rest have varying amounts of disk errors. I will be trying more in-depth methods in the coming days.

If you would like to have a tar.gz archive of these 11 .shk images, please send me a PM or email. I would post a link here, except for that I plan on moving the file later, and don't want people to end up with 404 errors later on.

Some of them will require integer basic or maybe Dos 3.2 to boot up. I am surprised that they still have them. They usually purge old things in favor of newer items. Where abouts is this ?

The disks I got are all self-booting. Here is where I ordered the collection: http://www.worldcat.org/isbn/0816012512

 

[Twilight_Rodent]

Hi,

Sent you an email. What is really interesting is that there are other disks still out there. A quick type in Apple Disk brought back over 15K of results. Only a small percentage is actually Apple II-IIgs disks but that still is amazing. I thought they would have all been purged from the system long ago. Over here in Michigan it seems that seems to be the case.

The main problem that I see, and it is a BIG one is they only lend/trade with certain libraries . So you would have to know someone in that state, city that belongs to that library and has an Apple II.

Take Care

 

[Dog Cow]

Update: I used MacADT to transfer the disks, but only managed to get the same 11 which I had originally made into .shk archives. I have now uploaded the whole package to asimov. So look for it in images/pd_collections/ in a day or three.