16 Jul
2018
16 Jul
'18
7:28 p.m.
On 07/16/2018 06:40 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
On 8", notch is write protect; no notch is write
enabled.
on 5.25", notch is write enabled; no notch is write protected.
I think that that justifies calling the 8" a "write protect notch", and
calling the 5.25" a "write enable notch".
Used 8" drives that I got sometimes had write-enable tabs in them that
had fallen off.? Once out of the enclosure, you did not need tiny
fingers to work on 8" drives.
Well, it's a matter of half-full/half-empty. The 5.25" notch was always
called write-protect, so go figure.
I've got a few old 5.25" DSDD floppies with a very clover
adaptation--they use a little aluminum slider in the jacket so that one
doesn't have deal with finding sticky things for protection.
The placement of the 5.25" notch, under whatever terminology--on the
jacket *side* was very convenient. It was possible to poll the sensor
to detect disk insertion/removal without the need for powering the
spindle motor. I coded some stuff up in the late 70s for a "Put that
back!" alarm when the disk contained files open for writing.
I've got some 3M-branded 8" notched floppies that came with a strip of
transparent *red* stick-ons. The result was that even when applied,
the disk to some drives was still write-protected. Very frustrating
the first time encountered.
--Chuck