"Early" 3.5" diskettes (was: Wired covers VCF east

On Tue, 31 Jul 2001, Megan wrote: I assume that you were NOT talking with somebody who thinks 720K was *really* early! The early Sony drives ran at 600RPM, with a correspondingly faster data transfer rate, and can sorta use more modern media. The first 3.5" diskettes did not have a shutter. (I have some from Shugart) The next had a manual shutter. YOU slide it open before putting it in the drive, and YOU close it when done. The next had a semi-automatic shutter. They are labelled "Auto Shutter". SOME drives can open the shutter, or YOU open it, and when you are done, "pinch"ing the corner of the disk releases a latch that closes the shutter. There is a little arrow showing where to pinch. Those are not very rare. I suppose that I could trade away some of them. Then they came out with the fully automatic shutter. Those are the common 720K diskettes. The little arrow that used to show where to pinch is still there on many diskettes! People now think that it is for telling them which end to shove in. Modern drives don't seem to mind missing shutters, and all of the early drives that I've tried are happy with modern diskettes with the shutter removed. So try taking the shutter off of a diskette and see whether that makes the drive happy. -- Fred Cisin cisin(a)xenosoft.com XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com PO Box 1236 (510) 558-9366 Berkeley, CA 94701-1236