ReLiability of wrong media (was: is out of 5-1/4" diskettes

From: Jerome Fine <jhfine_at_idirect.com>
Date: Fri Jan 22 20:34:20 1999

>Sam Ismail wrote:

> Well by golly we must reclaim the megabyte by boycotting companies that
> abuse it like that horrid IBM!!

Jerome Fine replies:

If you want to really complain, look at the optical disk drives produced
by Sony. I suggest that no one ever called a 180 KByte floppy drive
a 360 KByte floppy when you use a flippy (i.e. before there were
double sided floppy disk drives for the media which was double-sided in
almost all cases, but was ONLY used on one side when there was ONLY
one notch and pair of index holes - I presume most of those reading this
ridiculous thread now understand filppies - OK, I am guilty of making a
contribution also, but I just could not resist!) just because you could turn
the floppy over and use the other side.

Well, when Sony first brought out their 5 1/4" magneto-optical media which
was double sided, BUT the drive was ONLY single-sided (there was
about 300 MBytes formatted or about 325 MBytes unformatted per side
of the platter), the drive was stated to have a capacity of 650 MBytes because
the platter could be manually removed and turned over to access the other
side to look at the other 300 MBytes when it was re-inserted into the drive
(which could see ONLY 300 MBytes at a time). So while IBM may have
fudged by a percent or two, Sony just went ahead and doubled the drive
capacity - as if all single sided 180 KByte drives were instantly converted
to 360 KByte drives by using a flippy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sincerely yours,

Jerome Fine
RT-11/TSX-PLUS User/Addict
Received on Fri Jan 22 1999 - 20:34:20 GMT