24 Jan
2013
24 Jan
'13
10:34 a.m.
On 01/24/2013 08:34 AM, Jerome H. Fine wrote:
Why every 8" floppy media were coated identically
on both sides
I don't know, but that was the standard with every SS 8" floppy
soft sectored media I have ever seen. EXCEPT that when I
encountered a few 8" floppy media with a DEC label, the failure
rate as SS media was normal. HOWEVER, when the DSD 880/30
drive attempted to do an LLF, about 10% (if I remember correctly -
this was 25 years ago after all) failed the DS attempt at an LLF.
How DEC managed to obtain media which were degraded on the
second side so frequently when none of the other 8" floppy media
I encountered had that problem (i.e. the other media were able to
either LLF both sides or none and VERY few failed the DS LLF)
I can't explain, but that was my experience.
Well, they were--"flippy" disks didn't originate with the Apple crowd,
regardless of what some think. In fact, you could purchase commercial
media with the double index hole and a label on each side. That could
make things really confusing if you encountered a system like some of
the Altox boxes, where the Shugart drives were run "upside down".
But the SS media coating was done in the interest of yield. The
manufacturers could take the DS media that failed verification and stuff
it "good side down" in a SS jacket, rather than toss it into the trash.
When floppies ran $7.50-pre 1980s dollars the each, that was real money.
One of the more bewildering aspects of 8" branding was the labeling
based on pre-formatted media. So, for example, I've got a couple of new
boxes of RX02 pre-formatted next to a couple of boxes of Imation disks
labeled DS,DD 1024/F (I suspect that they were used for some NEC
APC-type systems, but I don't know for certain). The odd thing about
the Imations are that they come with transparent red write-enable tabs,
which, I can tell you are absolutely no good on my Qume DT/8s.
Apparently they never caused a problem with whatever system were their
intended target.
Sometimes, it's hard to determine if an unopened box is hard- or
soft-sectored because media was second-sourced by machine manufacturers
with only the applicable system name on the box.
Finally, *never* buy floppies with the "Wabash" brand--the binder has
most likely failed by now, leaving you with useless media and a cleanup
job on your drives. At one point, Tandy was apparently a bit careless
with their Fort Worth warehouse conditions that was used to stock their
SSSD 8" media. I've got a box of said disks that shed worse than my
golden retriever...
--Chuck