On Tue, 31 Jul 2001, Megan wrote:
> As for the diskette being proprietary, I talked with someone at
> VCF-east and they said that they though that *really* early
> 3.5" diskettes were different from what we are used to now...
> he thought he might have a drive and some media... (if you
> are reading this, whoever, please contact me).
I assume that you were NOT talking with somebody who thinks 720K was
*really* early!
The early Sony drives ran at 600RPM, with a correspondingly faster data
transfer rate, and can sorta use more modern media.
The first 3.5" diskettes did not have a shutter. (I have some from
Shugart)
The next had a manual shutter. YOU slide it open before putting it in the
drive, and YOU close it when done.
The next had a semi-automatic shutter. They are labelled "Auto Shutter".
SOME drives can open the shutter, or YOU open it, and when you are done,
"pinch"ing the corner of the disk releases a latch that closes the
shutter. There is a little arrow showing where to pinch. Those are not
very rare. I suppose that I could trade away some of them.
Then they came out with the fully automatic shutter. Those are the common
720K diskettes. The little arrow that used to show where to pinch is
still there on many diskettes! People now think that it is for telling
them which end to shove in.
Modern drives don't seem to mind missing shutters, and all of the early
drives that I've tried are happy with modern diskettes with the shutter
removed. So try taking the shutter off of a diskette and see whether that
makes the drive happy.
--
Fred Cisin cisin_at_xenosoft.com
XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com
PO Box 1236 (510) 558-9366
Berkeley, CA 94701-1236
Received on Tue Jul 31 2001 - 17:25:49 BST