If you’re a Star Trek fan or into the sci-fi scene at all, you’ve heard about Gene Roddenberry’s stash of floppy disks by now.
The possibilities are endless. My imagination is going nuts because I love Star Trek. Those of you who know me know that I’m not the 2009 reboot’s biggest fan, and let’s leave my opinion of the ’09 movie at that. So yes, you could say that I’m excited about this find. It could mean a new TV series for all I know!
The scoop on the find is this:
According to CNET, 200 floppy disks were discovered shortly after Roddenberry’s death. Sometime between now and then, they were sent to DriveSavers to recover the documents stored on them (read the article for details). The huge news is that they were successful.
Here’s my speculation (and hopes) of what’s stored inside. Bear in mind that a 5.25 inch floppy holds a max of 360 kilobytes (KB). Yes, kilobytes! [source]
That doesn’t leave much room per floppy for more than simple text files. The final draft of The Year is Now is 302 KB. The book is 172 pages and roughly 74,000 words long (just to give you an idea of what a maximum of 360 KB gets you).
1. Scripts for a future Star Trek series – How can I NOT wish for this? I’m not excited about the rumors floating around about a new series, but if they scrap it in favor of filming one with uncovered Roddenberry scripts? Hell to the yes!
2. A novel or two – Wouldn’t that be awesome? Maybe he wrote some crazy, out-there sci-fi book that never saw the light of day.
3. Scripts for a completely new show – As a writer, I know how it is. You focus all your works on your made up universe, but sometimes you need to take a break from it. I would love to see something we’ve never seen from Roddenberry before!
4. Adulting stuff – Budgets, an address book, records of his bills, tax documents…etc. Boring, but even the best of us can’t escape the bleh that is adulting.
5. A journal – Maybe he blogged before blogging was even a thing. Maybe there are all of these files on there of “Today I had the perfect sandwich. I wanted to take a photo of it.” Of course he had no way of posting his life to the outside world, but it’s hilarious to picture him wanting to tell the world about an awesome sandwich or how ugly the coats were at his local department store. Is the dress blue & black or white & gold?
That’s all I can think of for now.
What do you think is stored on Roddenberry’s 200 floppy disks? I want to know!
Send me your guesses on Facebook or Twitter!
I’d love to compare theories and eventually find out if we’re spot on or can’t hit the broad side of a barn!
