26 Sep
2000
26 Sep
'00
3:09 p.m.
On Tue, 26 Sep 2000, Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) wrote:
On Tue, 26 Sep 2000, Don Maslin wrote:
George was always practical, if not always realistic :)
Fred, what does the 3.25" diskette look
like, and what machine used it?
When "shirt pocket" diskettes came about, there was a lot of argument
about which one would win out. The computer press argued about which one
fit the pocket best, and the completely irrelevant issue of which ones
were actually best. George Morrow said that the solution was obvious:
cut a deal between the computer industry and the clothing industry to make
shirt pockets 5.25". A number of companies went with 3", such as
Amstradt, Amdek drives for
Apple and Coco, and even the early Gavilans.
Dysan, who almost controlled the diskette business did NOT want to retool
to make hard-shell cases, etc. So they came out with a miniature version
of a 5.25" diskette. It had a metal center hub, but was otherwise
constructed like a "normal" floppy.
But the big problem was how to get it accepted.
Dysan bet the company on a giant software publishing venture. They cut
deals with most of the big software companies to be able to distribute
most of the "major" software packages on 3.25" diskettes.
The theory was that whichever format had the software would become the
standard.
It didn't work.
The 3.5" won out.
Dysan survived, but no longer dominates the field.
Gee, I guess Dysan didn't have the clout that BG has.
The Seequa Chameleon 325 was the only machine that
I'm aware of that went
with the 3.25". I would be very interested to know of any others.
Yes, I remember the Chameleon, but never saw the 325 model.
I got my 3.25" drives at local swaps. A lot of
my diskettes were
discarded by Micropro (Wordstar).
Still trying to figure out who used the Canon CMD-500 drives of which I
have two. They are one of those kind where the whole top of the drive
flips up to permit insertion/removal of a (apparently) flexible jacket
that housed a disk of about 3.75" diameter. It was clamped for rotation
by a conventional fingered plastic wheel. Jacket width was about 3.8",
judging by the width of the guides, but length needed to be less or
non-square on the 'business' end because of mechanical interference.
Someday!
- don
--
Fred Cisin cisin(a)xenosoft.com
XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com
PO Box 1236 (510) 644-9366
Berkeley, CA 94701-1236