2 Sep
2022
2 Sep
'22
4:03 a.m.
It turns out that some 8" drives can be set to
separate the sector holes
from the index hole (separate output pins for index and sector). Doing
so, gives you what amounts to a soft-sectored floppy, regardless of what
the physical object is.
The flippy 8" diskette I linked a picture of this morning was written that way. Took
me a little time to figure out. Part of a massive lot of diskettes all done like that.
I'm guessing the original owner either worked for Varityper at some point, or knew
someone who did, and was able to acquire a huge quantity of hard sector diskettes
cheaply.
I know that I used a Siemens FDD-200 drive jumpered
accordingly to read them.
Shugart SA-801 (or 800 with the LSI chip and 801 jumper closed) will also do it!
Thanks,
Jonathan