Roddenberry Data Recovered

When Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry passed away in 1991, he left a television legacy that some would say has grown in the telling, but there’s no doubt that Star Trek has had a big impact on the culture over the last fifty years.

After Roddenberry’s death, his estate discovered nearly 200 5.25-inch floppy discs that stored his work. Originally producing his scripts on typewriter, he later used two custom-built computers for his scripts, story ideas, and show notes. Of those two computers, one had been auctioned off and the other was non-functional.

So when these discs were discovered, there wasn’t an easy way to read them, because the custom-built computers used custom-designed software.

At the recommendation of LunaTech, the company retained by Roddenberry Entertainment, the discs were sent to DriveSavers. “We’ve been working with DriveSavers for over 5 years,” said Bobby Pappas, president and founder of LunaTech, “we knew if anyone could get this unique data back, they could.”

Engineers at DriveSavers took over three months to decrypt the discs, working without any operating manual. They had to develop software to read the discs, and finally cracked the formatting to discover…

“Documents,” says Mike Cobb, DriveSavers director of engineering. “Lots of documents.” As to the contents of the documents, Mike says, “2016 just happens to be the 50th anniversary of the original Star Trek, anything could happen, the world will have to wait and see.”