8 inch floppies

Nigel Johnson nw.johnson at ieee.org
Fri Dec 13 20:11:23 CST 2019


Oh the things companies did to try and increase their profits! Bad idea 
indeed, reversible just meant half the profit for the suppliers!

On the same vein, we ordered a TWX line form Bell but supplied our own 
machine. Bell said they were not responsible if the line caused errors, 
and sent a man out with a bit error rate tester - all for 110 baud!

I remember when we sold DSD440 floppies, and the DEC salesmen were going 
around saying that it could not format floppies when their RX02 could - 
although the only thing that the RX02 could do was change the density 
bit from single to double!

cheers,

Nigel


On 13/12/2019 21:06, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
> On 12/13/19 8:22 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
>> On 12/13/19 5:11 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
>>
>>> I never saw any flippies commercially made but many
>>> companies made punches for flippy 5.25" disks.  I always
>>> had to make my own for 8".
>>>
>> They were standard products.  Let's see if I can find a period ad...
>>
>> Well, not an ad, but a precise description:
>>
>> http://bitsavers.org/pdf/3M/3M_Diskette_Reference_Manual_May83.pdf
>>
>> Page 8, top illustration.  3M added an "R" to the stock number for
>> "reversible".  I have a few in my stash.
> Must have been targeted at the home market as I don't
> remember ever seeing them in any of the supplies catalogs
> I dealt with.  And there were numerous white papers
> talking about why it was a really bad idea to spin
> floppies in both directions.
>
> bill
>
  

-- 
Nigel Johnson
MSc., MIEEE
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