6 Jun
2016
6 Jun
'16
7:44 a.m.
On 5 June 2016 at 17:19, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
I doubt it. The ED floppy did not come at a good
time. Clone (okay,
second-source) manufacturers had adopted the HD format wholesale and the
price of HD floppies themselves had dropped to the level of DD prices.
By 1990, most if not all, new PCs had HD droves and even Apple was able
to understand the PC format. When ED floppies were released to the
general unwashed public, integrated FDCs largely could not handle the
1Mbps data rate, so adopting the format meant changing the FDC (fraught
with problems if said FDC was integrated into the motherboard) and
buying a new drive and expensive media. Perhaps the media price would
have fallen if adopted. That's not a sure thing, however--prices never
fell on floptical (3M superdisk, Caleb SHD, etc.) media.
Also, by 1990, IBM was no longer an industry leader in PCs, nor did it
set the technical standards (MCA pretty much did that in).
But I don't think that a high-capacity Zip would have made a dent in the
CD-R market. I'm not aware of many consumer-grade audio players that
can handle Zip disks of any stripe.
Too little, too late is probably another aspect.
Hmm. I got a blog post out of this:
http://liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/49563.html
... where I developed the idea slightly.
Others on FB agree with you.
The HD 3.5" (1.4MB under MS-DOS) floppy itself was a big leap from the
DD (720kB) one. Most of the 16-bitters never made it: the disk
controllers of the Atari ST, Amiga, etc. couldn't handle it. AFAIK
there's only one ZX Spectrum interface that did -- the Czech MB02:
http://www.benophetinternet.nl/hobby/mb02/
I must confess I rather fancy one. :-)
So, yes, ED was a big step, but so was HD in its time. I think the IBM
PS/2 (1987) was the origin, right?
And there was never a 720kB IBM standard, only on things like Apricots.
According to Wikipedia...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk#Sizes.2C_performance_and_capacity
... the 3.5" timeline was:
* 1983 -- SS/DD
* 1984 -- DS/DD, probably the most widespread
* 1986 -- HD, the PC standard
* 1987 -- ED, the 2.8MB ones that didn't catch on
* 1991 -- 21MB floptical
* 1994 -- 100MB Zip
* 1996 -- 120MB floptical
* 1997 -- 240MB floptical
That gap from '87 to the equally unsuccessful 21MB format, was the
killer, IMHO. If everyone had adopted the ~3MB disks, it might have
lived, but that probably wasn't enough on its own. Thus my speculation
as to whether pure magnetic ~6MB diskettes might have been viable
around 1988-1989 and ~12MB ones around 1990.
--
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