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Using 8-inch diskette drives with a PC

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Re: Using 8-inch diskette drives with a PC

#11

Post by yardshop »

At my first full-time computer programming job in 1987, we had two NEC-APC computers[1], huge all-in-one units that housed a 10 or so inch screen and 2 8" floppy drives! One of them had a color screen and was connected to an equally enormous 10MB hard drive! My boss used that one. I got the monochrome green one. We had numerous plastic roll-top boxes of disks for various different programs, all written in dBase II: Clients, Employees, Billing and Payroll. As I was coming on they were just being upgraded to dBase III+.

After a couple years I talked them into getting PC clones, but the consultants overruled and convinced the agency to get us an IBM AT with a 60GB^H^HMB hard drive, 2 floppy-only XTs, and a Token Ring Network! The server software used so much space on the AT that you could barely run anything else on it.

Then we had the issue of transferring all of the data from 8" disks over to the IBMs. The consultants wanted thousands of dollars to put each disk into a "toaster" (they called it) that would transfer things to 5.25 disks. I knew it could be done much cheaper, so after a trip to the library to look up serial cable diagrams, a stop at Radio Shack to get some connectors, and a rummage in the office basement to find some old phone cord, I rigged up a transfer cable! The sending program on the NEC was written in their version of BASIC, and the receiving program was written in Turbo Pascal. After several hours at a low baud rate, all of the data was transferred. I got a decent $600 bonus out of it!

[1] http://oldcomputers.net/nec-apc.html

[edit: MB, not 60GB!]

Re: Using 8-inch diskette drives with a PC

#12

Post by zabzonk »

jerrysievert wrote: post #8
zabzonk wrote: post #4

I seriously got into computing in 1979, working for the Microbiology Department at Queen Elizabeth College, University of London, using Research Machines 380Zs, equipped with both 8 and 5.25 inch floppy drives. Here are a few of my observations on the beasts: - They required quite a lot of strength to open and particularly to close - some of our students were scared they were going to break them (and the cost a lot b…

> They were incredibly noisy - the servos were banging away like mad, particularly if you were doing anything database-like, which I mostly was. heck, even my 5.25" c64 drive was so noisy from knocking its head that I kept the cover unscrewed to realign it on a regular basis. especially after trying to use "copy protected" disks that causes even more knocking. I was also confused when 3.5" floppies came out and were…

My Dad had a floppy on his C64 and it was terribly unreliable, but (once again) less unreliable than the cassette deck that I was stuck with. He loved gadgets, but really only used it to play "Hunchback" and similar games. I often thought "Shall I hit him over the head with a hammer and steal it, so I can create some truly brilliant software?", but I never did.

Re: Using 8-inch diskette drives with a PC

#13

Post by jhgb »

yardshop wrote: post #11

At my first full-time computer programming job in 1987, we had two NEC-APC computers[1], huge all-in-one units that housed a 10 or so inch screen and 2 8" floppy drives! One of them had a color screen and was connected to an equally enormous 10MB hard drive! My boss used that one. I got the monochrome green one. We had numerous plastic roll-top boxes of disks for various different programs, all written in dBase II: C…

Clearly the 60GB HDD machine was the superior choice for years to come. ;)

Re: Using 8-inch diskette drives with a PC

#14

Post by 7thaccount »

jhgb wrote: post #13
yardshop wrote: post #11

At my first full-time computer programming job in 1987, we had two NEC-APC computers[1], huge all-in-one units that housed a 10 or so inch screen and 2 8" floppy drives! One of them had a color screen and was connected to an equally enormous 10MB hard drive! My boss used that one. I got the monochrome green one. We had numerous plastic roll-top boxes of disks for various different programs, all written in dBase II: C…

Clearly the 60GB HDD machine was the superior choice for years to come. ;)

Did they mean 60 MB? Seems like a lot for ~1987

Re: Using 8-inch diskette drives with a PC

#16

Post by zabzonk »

the_only_law wrote: post #10

A few years ago I was looking at purchasing an IBM DisplayWriter from someone. I had a handful of devices with 5.25” drives but have never an 8” drive in person until then. Unfortunately the machine was not in a working state. There was some suspicion that it was a simple issue, but I’m not an EE and I try to make sure my retro equipment works prior to buying it. Since the system wouldn’t boot, I was unsure whether t…

Not many people seem to know that there was a software version of DisplayWriter on the original IBM PC. I know this because IBM were desperate to get into the education market in the UK in the early 1980s and I was at the time working at Middlesex Polytechnic (in the UK, university now) and they gave us a PC and the software - and it was laughably crap. I was a WordStar user at the time, and I couldn't believe how inept DisplayWriter it was - and I was a big fan of VM/CMS they sold us and the 4381 super-minis that it ran on.

DisplayWriter was deeply, deeply pants.

Re: Using 8-inch diskette drives with a PC

#17

Post by analog31 »

I wrote my first computer program on an 8" floppy. I had signed up for a course in BASIC at my high school, in 1981. The school had a computer facility with access to a mainframe operated by the county school district.

We had these machines made by IBM, that emulated a keypunch machine, but stored the data on an 8" floppy. They had the same keyboard layout as a keypunch, and a one-line alphanumeric display. The idea was that a skilled keypunch operator could start using floppies with no retraining.

You entered your program and handed the disk to the operator, and received your printout later. You could do one or two debug cycles during a class period, maybe three if you came in later during the day, after which the operator's patience wore out and you were told to write your program more carefully. In reality, they were probably doing this work as a favor for the math teacher who was teaching the class.

The next semester, the school got some CRT terminals, but there were five terminals for a class of about 15 kids, hand picked by the math teacher. I still remember my user name and password.

I wrote a program that generated mazes, and when I thought it was working OK, I set it to print out a maze the size of a sheet of green bar paper. Next day, I got a big scolding for creating an endless loop. But in reality, my program was OK and I learned a lesson about complexity -- my program probably had some insanely high order like O(n^3) or even worse.

I don't know of anybody remembers or noticed, but I remember taking some of my first plane flights, and the person behind the ticket desk was typing very quickly on their terminal, but with just their index fingers. That's keypunch technique.

Re: Using 8-inch diskette drives with a PC

#18

Post by airhead969 »

louwrentius wrote: post #5
paulsutter wrote: post #2

Embarrassed to be old enough to remember: 8" floppies were actually called disks, and the smaller 5.25" floppy drives were called diskettes because they were so compact

In Dutch, we always talked about 'diskettes', when talking about the rigid 3.5" disks. The large 5.25" were called floppies. Diskettes were called floppies too sometimes, but never the other way around. I'm from the time frame in which I never saw 8 inch floppies. The 5.25" were on the way out, many PCs had both 1.44 and 1.2 MB drives for a while. /rambling

8" were very floppy. ;-)

We, in Silicon Valley, used "floppies" to mean "5.25 or 3.5 inch disks." (Confusing, yes?)

And, we used "disks" to mean "any type of storage media, fixed or removable."

Also, "diskettes" meant "the formal name of 3.5 inch floppies."

I think this is the same nomenclature.

Re: Using 8-inch diskette drives with a PC

#19

Post by bcrl »

jerrysievert wrote: post #8
zabzonk wrote: post #4

I seriously got into computing in 1979, working for the Microbiology Department at Queen Elizabeth College, University of London, using Research Machines 380Zs, equipped with both 8 and 5.25 inch floppy drives. Here are a few of my observations on the beasts: - They required quite a lot of strength to open and particularly to close - some of our students were scared they were going to break them (and the cost a lot b…

> They were incredibly noisy - the servos were banging away like mad, particularly if you were doing anything database-like, which I mostly was. heck, even my 5.25" c64 drive was so noisy from knocking its head that I kept the cover unscrewed to realign it on a regular basis. especially after trying to use "copy protected" disks that causes even more knocking. I was also confused when 3.5" floppies came out and were…

I found that 1.2MB 5.25" floppies were faster (they spun at 360 rpm vs the 300 rpm of 3.5" drives) and more reliable than 3.5" floppies in my experience. I had so many problems with 720KB (880KB on my Amiga) floppies, even with expensive media back then.

Re: Using 8-inch diskette drives with a PC

#20

Post by lsllc »

paulsutter wrote: post #2

Embarrassed to be old enough to remember: 8" floppies were actually called disks, and the smaller 5.25" floppy drives were called diskettes because they were so compact

Nothing to be embarrassed about -- it was the golden age of computing! Lucky to have been able to experience it!
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