I still have a few floppy disks packed away at the loft, but I wonder if they still work the next time I turn on my BBC or Archimedes.
Floppy Disk / Diskettes // retrocmp / retro computing
11–20 of 20 posts
Re: Floppy Disk / Diskettes // retrocmp / retro computing
#12A trivia not touched on in the article - IBM 5 1/4" floppy drives had dual heads and could read the front and back side of a disk without flipping. For cost savings Apple ][ drives had only one head so you had to flip the disk occasionally. But to convert an IBM 5 1/4" floppy for dual sided used on an Apple, you had to cut a second write-protection notch, either with scissors, and xacto-knife, a hole punch, or with a dedicated "drive doubler" puncher.
https://atariprojects.org/2019/06/28/make-floppy-disks-doubl...
Re: Floppy Disk / Diskettes // retrocmp / retro computing
#13A trivia not touched on in the article - IBM 5 1/4" floppy drives had dual heads and could read the front and back side of a disk without flipping. For cost savings Apple ][ drives had only one head so you had to flip the disk occasionally. But to convert an IBM 5 1/4" floppy for dual sided used on an Apple, you had to cut a second write-protection notch, either with scissors, and xacto-knife, a hole punch, or with a…
Same for the C64 floppy drive (1541).
Re: Floppy Disk / Diskettes // retrocmp / retro computing
#14I still have a few floppy disks packed away at the loft, but I wonder if they still work the next time I turn on my BBC or Archimedes.
The last time I checked, the only 5,25" floppies that still worked from that age were the ones in those Acornsoft covers.
Re: Floppy Disk / Diskettes // retrocmp / retro computing
#15A trivia not touched on in the article - IBM 5 1/4" floppy drives had dual heads and could read the front and back side of a disk without flipping. For cost savings Apple ][ drives had only one head so you had to flip the disk occasionally. But to convert an IBM 5 1/4" floppy for dual sided used on an Apple, you had to cut a second write-protection notch, either with scissors, and xacto-knife, a hole punch, or with a…
The original IBM PC could be purchased either with 160KB/180KB single-sided floppy drives, or the 320KB/360KB double-sided. Some early IBM PC users still needed the "flippy" trick!
See IBM advert, https://archive.org/details/eu_BYTE-1983-10_OCR/page/n111/mo...
Re: Floppy Disk / Diskettes // retrocmp / retro computing
#16I still have a few floppy disks packed away at the loft, but I wonder if they still work the next time I turn on my BBC or Archimedes.
I'd suggest grabbing a greaseweazle[0] ahead of that.
0. github.com/keirf/greaseweazle/
Re: Floppy Disk / Diskettes // retrocmp / retro computing
#17I still have a few floppy disks packed away at the loft, but I wonder if they still work the next time I turn on my BBC or Archimedes.
The last time I checked, the only 5,25" floppies that still worked from that age were the ones in those Acornsoft covers.
I recently repaired an Apple II that were stored in a binder in an environment that wasn't climate controlled (for ~35 years). The 5.25" floppies had all developed a layer of stickiness, but all but one read fine once I cleaned up the drives.
Re: Floppy Disk / Diskettes // retrocmp / retro computing
#18does anyone anywhere in the world still produce diskettes... if I want to start my very old Apple ][ - what are my options?
Re: Floppy Disk / Diskettes // retrocmp / retro computing
#19I still have a few floppy disks packed away at the loft, but I wonder if they still work the next time I turn on my BBC or Archimedes.
My collection of 5 1/4" floppies were mostly fine, after some thirty years. I think I had one or two (of very many) with read errors.
3.5" floppies though.. just about every "HD" (1.44MB) ones were a goner. The "DD" (720kB) fared much better.
Re: Floppy Disk / Diskettes // retrocmp / retro computing
#20As a kid (ok, as an adult too), I knew what the "CH" on floppies meant. I was curious, but never asked or tried looking it up. I forget when, but one day, it dawned on me that it said "HD"! I guess most of my floppies had their labels on in such a way that the flap/door was facing down, so it said "CH". To read "HD," then the label would be upside down.
I just noticed that I said "I knew", when I meant "I never knew". I guess I accidentally a word there.