11–20 of 43 posts
Article has inaccuracies. The HD floppy is to formatted 1.44MB, not 1.2MB, and unformatted capacity was 2.0MB. People did not program word processors themselves as they didn't exist, typewriters did. Later, pre disk, magazines type-ins and software on (magnetic) tapes were common means of software distribution. How to tell me your under 30 without telling me you're under 30 :D
Article has inaccuracies. The HD floppy is to formatted 1.44MB, not 1.2MB, and unformatted capacity was 2.0MB. People did not program word processors themselves as they didn't exist, typewriters did. Later, pre disk, magazines type-ins and software on (magnetic) tapes were common means of software distribution. How to tell me your under 30 without telling me you're under 30 :D
That's funny. I had to laugh that off.
Now the type in magazines at the time were amazing - especially with error checking "co-routines" to make sure you did it right. But there were bugs in printed material that a month or two later you could fix from the errors section. Best use case of a subscription model assuming you didn't want to fix it yourself or redo it all etc... Also as a side to that there was a barcode scanner for the code for a few publications.
Fun times.
Article has inaccuracies. The HD floppy is to formatted 1.44MB, not 1.2MB, and unformatted capacity was 2.0MB. People did not program word processors themselves as they didn't exist, typewriters did. Later, pre disk, magazines type-ins and software on (magnetic) tapes were common means of software distribution. How to tell me your under 30 without telling me you're under 30 :D
I miss the sound of popping a floppy disk in the drive.
Article has inaccuracies. The HD floppy is to formatted 1.44MB, not 1.2MB, and unformatted capacity was 2.0MB. People did not program word processors themselves as they didn't exist, typewriters did. Later, pre disk, magazines type-ins and software on (magnetic) tapes were common means of software distribution. How to tell me your under 30 without telling me you're under 30 :D
I believe floppy 5.25" diskettes with 1.2mb predated the harder but eventually more common 3.5" 1.44mb ones. 5.25 were my first diskettes on a 286 at with 16mhz TURBO whee :-)
I miss the sound of popping a floppy disk in the drive.
I miss all the old PC sounds except the fans.
For kid me, the sound of floppy drives, hard drives, and optical drives were simply mesmerizing to witness. Those were the sounds of the computer performing magic before my eyes and ears.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe floppy 5.25" diskettes with 1.2mb predated the harder but eventually more common 3.5" 1.44mb ones. 5.25 were my first diskettes on a 286 at with 16mhz TURBO whee :-)
Funny enough the 5.25s were actually floppy. The 3.5s weren’t and I’m not sure why we didn’t call them mini hard disks.
Inside a hard disc drive, there are aluminum or glass discs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I miss all the old PC sounds except the fans.
This has me thinking but I don't like to assume. I recall most of my first computers really not having any dedicated fans until around 1999 - they mostly used the power supply to pull an airflow through cases. I do miss some of the sounds that let you know machines were doing something - but we also had indication lights, too - mostly gone now, for disk drives. Heck my first laptop had a second LCD to show battery le…
The article at one point quotes a "disk drive analyst." Man I don't know if we have those anymore either.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I miss all the old PC sounds except the fans.
This has me thinking but I don't like to assume. I recall most of my first computers really not having any dedicated fans until around 1999 - they mostly used the power supply to pull an airflow through cases. I do miss some of the sounds that let you know machines were doing something - but we also had indication lights, too - mostly gone now, for disk drives. Heck my first laptop had a second LCD to show battery le…