Prototype IBM DemiDiskette drive
Chuck Guzis
cclist at sydex.com
Wed Aug 22 13:41:16 CDT 2018
On 08/22/2018 10:47 AM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
> The 3.25" ALMOST made it to market. It was used on the "Seequa
> Chameleon 325". So technically, it made it to market.
> Dysan (3.25") did not want to go with a hard shell. The 3.25" had a
> metal center hub, but was the same jacket material as 5.25 and 8 inch.
> Besides shirt pocket dimensions, Dysan reasoned that the winner would be
> the one that had software availability. So, they bet the company
> (literally) on software publishing in 3.25". For a brief time, you
> could have purchased most of the major software packages on 3.25" disk!
> Dysan software publishing had more titles than Lifeboat. When that did
> NOT win the war, Dysan never really recovered. The 3.25" drives and
> diskettes that I have came from MicroPro (Wordstar).
I believe that's my photo of a 3.25" floppy over on Wikipedia. Still
have a couple of drives and boxes of media to go with them.
I think most owners of the Chameleon 325 swapped out the drives for
conventional 3.5" ones eventually. The interface is the same.
I recall seeing some 3.25" drives back in the day on one of the shelves
of Haltek (not Halted) marked "Shugart Venture". A venture that got
nowhere.
I do miss the old Haltek.
--Chuck
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