FW: Third round of Diskette Experiments completed (results) - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

29 Sep 2006

...

Subject: RE: FW: Third round of Diskette Experiments completed  (results)
   From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com>
   Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 18:23:34 -0700 (PDT)
     To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at
classiccmp.org>

On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Chuck Guzis wrote:
  There were some really terrible 5.25" DSDD
(360K) disks marketed.  One type
 was sold by Control Data (StorageMaster).   If I see one of those in a
 . . .
 "Elephant" brand 360Ks can be problematical in the same way, as can the
 "Precision" brand. 
Just about every brand produced some bad batches.
The Verbatims right before "Datalife" were pretty bad.  Was the trademark
"Datalife" created just to try to reassure us that they were no longer
going to jopardize the life of our data?

The worst 360Ks that I encountered was Roytype (Royal Typewriter).
Within a few minutes after writing and verifying, they would be blank
again.    Hmmmm.  could also get something like that from the wrong
coercivity, ...

It all started back when with the 3M Blackwatch audotape.. Great stuff until
it was around afew years then it shed binder like mad.

It takes a bit of majik to get the oxide coating to stick to the mylar 
base.

the other factor was that of all the brands I think the base material
only came from three or five makers like 3M, BASF, Nashua, Dupont maybe 
others. The key is if a maker lost the receipe that could show up 
as their brand and five others or maybe only the others!

Allison