Origins of the 3.5in Floppy Disk [video]
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Origins of the 3.5in Floppy Disk [video]
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Re: Origins of the 3.5in Floppy Disk [video]
#2You know we say magnetic media dont last but my 5.25" Floppy Disk are still readable last time I tested it in 2020 during COVID when I was too bored at home. I have some 8" but the computer that had it wouldn't turn on anymore. The PC with 5.25" and 3.5" still does.
Not the same could be said about CD though. CDs that were pressed are still ok, not so much for burned CD-R. Most of them are full or errors when reading it.
Re: Origins of the 3.5in Floppy Disk [video]
#3I heard that 3.5" disks were originally marketed as "stiffies" to help differentiate them from "floppies", the older 5.25" and 8" disks. But, as the story goes, someone pulled the plug for obvious reasons. Not sure if that's true; I want it to be true because it's hilarious, though.
Re: Origins of the 3.5in Floppy Disk [video]
#4I heard that 3.5" disks were originally marketed as "stiffies" to help differentiate them from "floppies", the older 5.25" and 8" disks. But, as the story goes, someone pulled the plug for obvious reasons. Not sure if that's true; I want it to be true because it's hilarious, though.
Cathode Ray Dude recently put out a new video on YouTube and mentions "stiffys" in that too.
Re: Origins of the 3.5in Floppy Disk [video]
#5Fun fact: In South Africa we called these a "stiffy" because it was so rigid compared to the 5¼-inch floppy.
Re: Origins of the 3.5in Floppy Disk [video]
#6You know we say magnetic media dont last but my 5.25" Floppy Disk are still readable last time I tested it in 2020 during COVID when I was too bored at home. I have some 8" but the computer that had it wouldn't turn on anymore. The PC with 5.25" and 3.5" still does. Not the same could be said about CD though. CDs that were pressed are still ok, not so much for burned CD-R. Most of them are full or errors when reading…
> not so much for burned CD-R. Most of them are full or errors when reading it.
David Rosenthal tests this periodically. Most recently he tested in August. Notice the first sentence of the quote: https://blog.dshr.org/2023/08/optical-media-durability-updat...
> The drives I use from ASUS and LG report read errors from the CDs but verify the MD5s correctly. I didn't notice them reporting any read errors from the DVDs. An off-brand drive fails to read the CDs, but read one of the older DVDs with no read errors.
> Surprisingly, with no special storage precautions, generic low-cost media, and consumer drives, I'm getting good data from CD-Rs more than 19 years old, and from DVD-Rs nearly 17 years old. Your mileage may vary. Tune in again next year for another episode.
> Last year I found a NetBSD1.2 CD dating from October 1996 whose cksum(1) checksums all verified correctly despite a few read errors. That CD was still delivering good data after nearly 26 years, but this year a couple of the checksums failed.
Re: Origins of the 3.5in Floppy Disk [video]
#7You know we say magnetic media dont last but my 5.25" Floppy Disk are still readable last time I tested it in 2020 during COVID when I was too bored at home. I have some 8" but the computer that had it wouldn't turn on anymore. The PC with 5.25" and 3.5" still does. Not the same could be said about CD though. CDs that were pressed are still ok, not so much for burned CD-R. Most of them are full or errors when reading…
My 5.25" ones from the mid-eighties are still readable. As far as I can tell the 8" ones are as well, though I haven't tested many of them. But their density is low, which helps a lot. And that's also why none of my 3.5" 1.44MB floppies are readable - the density is a bit too high for what's feasible for that physical medium.
I don't know about later ones, but early CD-R easily failed after less than a year back when I tried to use them as backup media. I quickly abandoned the idea of using them as backup.
Re: Origins of the 3.5in Floppy Disk [video]
#8You know we say magnetic media dont last but my 5.25" Floppy Disk are still readable last time I tested it in 2020 during COVID when I was too bored at home. I have some 8" but the computer that had it wouldn't turn on anymore. The PC with 5.25" and 3.5" still does. Not the same could be said about CD though. CDs that were pressed are still ok, not so much for burned CD-R. Most of them are full or errors when reading…
My 3.5 floppy disks from early 90's keeps being fine. I a few months ago, I installed the demo of Hallowen Harry, and the Commander Keen 4 copy that comes with the Gravis Game pad, in a 486 without issues.
Re: Origins of the 3.5in Floppy Disk [video]
#9You know we say magnetic media dont last but my 5.25" Floppy Disk are still readable last time I tested it in 2020 during COVID when I was too bored at home. I have some 8" but the computer that had it wouldn't turn on anymore. The PC with 5.25" and 3.5" still does. Not the same could be said about CD though. CDs that were pressed are still ok, not so much for burned CD-R. Most of them are full or errors when reading…
> not so much for burned CD-R. Most of them are full or errors when reading it. David Rosenthal tests this periodically. Most recently he tested in August. Notice the first sentence of the quote: https://blog.dshr.org/2023/08/optical-media-durability-updat... > The drives I use from ASUS and LG report read errors from the CDs but verify the MD5s correctly. I didn't notice them reporting any read errors from the DVDs.…
That's my experience as well. I recently imaged
- a collection of CD-Roms attached to a computer magazine, 1999-2001
- my own collection of stuff downloaded or backed up around 2003-2004; most of it on Verbatim DVDs, but some on CD-R or CD-RW (likely also from Verbatim)
I had very few read errors, and it was impressive especially considering it's more than 50 CDs and that I never payed too much attention to how they were stored. Most of the computer magazine CDs were stored directly in a "cardboard sleeve", not even one of those plastic/paper ones...
Re: Origins of the 3.5in Floppy Disk [video]
#10Fun fact: In South Africa we called these a "stiffy" because it was so rigid compared to the 5¼-inch floppy.
:D Hah perfect, I can totally imagine that with the SA accent... and frankly more logical, I never got why they were called floppy disks in most of the world considering their predecessors.