Who else remembers using the square punch to put a hole in those 3 1/2" AOL disks to reformat them as HD?
For what are the Windows A:\ and B:\ drives used?
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Re: For what are the Windows A:\ and B:\ drives used?
#12This question makes me feel old. And I'm in my early twenties.
I started in computing with an Apple II+ (not really - my II+ was only the first to have floppies). I always wondered why those poor CP/M (and MSX) users had to put up with such nonsense as drive letters ;-)
Re: For what are the Windows A:\ and B:\ drives used?
#13Knowing the answer and feeling somewhat nostalgic about it makes me feel old!
and feeling somewhat nostalgic about it And then remembering taking forever to save anything on a school computer, only for the floppy to read half the file and die when I got home. It's amazing - maybe it was the crappy quality of floppies I was using, or maybe I was using them for too long, but for me, regularly not being able to read data back off a floppy was a fact of life. Times have definitely changed for the…
Norton Disk Doctor to the rescue! Even if it couldn't save the data, you could reuse the floppy. They were expensive at the time.
Out of curiosity, I just googled for prices and it seems prices stayed about the same since I bought the last pack.
Re: For what are the Windows A:\ and B:\ drives used?
#14This reminds me that even us twenty-somethings may one day be made every bit as clumsy and baffled by whatever comes up 30 years from now as our own proverbial mothers are today...
Re: For what are the Windows A:\ and B:\ drives used?
#15Quite fascinating how some design decisions tend to stick due to technical or other reasons. We will probably still run Windows 2020 on the C-drive. Sometimes the reason is backwards compatiblity, other times it's something that requires a huge redesign of an entire system.
But, most of the time I think it's because people simply think that this is the way things are supposed to be. One example is how long it took before Auto-ISO became an option on DSLRs.
In all cases there are opportunities for a startup to be disruptive. So, keep looking for those C-drives!
Re: For what are the Windows A:\ and B:\ drives used?
#16Who else remembers using the square punch to put a hole in those 3 1/2" AOL disks to reformat them as HD?
They had something similair for 5 1/4" floppies to go from 360k to 720k.
Get off my lawn.
Re: For what are the Windows A:\ and B:\ drives used?
#17One might wonder why the first two letters are for floppy and not HDD. If you follow the drive letters, going from A to higher alphabets generally give you evolution of technology (ignoring network map Z:).
A: - floppy C:/D: - HDD E: - CD/DVD F: - External Storage
Re: For what are the Windows A:\ and B:\ drives used?
#18Who else remembers using the square punch to put a hole in those 3 1/2" AOL disks to reformat them as HD?
My first stab at being an entrepreneur was buying normal 3.5" disks, stamping holes in them and selling them as pristine 3.5" HD disks. Let's just say it was less successful than I'd hoped.
Re: For what are the Windows A:\ and B:\ drives used?
#19Who else remembers using the square punch to put a hole in those 3 1/2" AOL disks to reformat them as HD?
My aunt did one better: she used a scissors to reformat a 5.25" disk as a 3.5" one. (Lesson learned: be excessively cautious when giving instructions.)
Re: For what are the Windows A:\ and B:\ drives used?
#20Who else remembers using the square punch to put a hole in those 3 1/2" AOL disks to reformat them as HD?
Square hole punches cost money. Scissors are already lying around the house. Sure, the results weren't pretty, but then pretty was not the stated goal.
This was for 5 1/4" floppies, naturally. By the time 3 1/2" was the standard, I had a job and could simply requisition them as needed.