David Lovett of Usagi Electric is restoring a 63-year-old LGP-21 computer and successfully recovered data from its magnetic memory disk. Despite tracks 0 and 1 being unreadable, track 2 yielded data. The LGP-21 uses interleaved tracks to reduce read/write head costs compared to the LGP-30, at the expense of slower memory access. Recovery required restoring the Flexowriter typewriter interface and paper tape reader, then loading a bootstrap program to read the disk. The raw hex output was printed over 1.5 hours and will be scanned and OCR-processed to determine what the system was last used for.
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