8" hard sectored floppies

From: Dwight K. Elvey <dwight.elvey_at_amd.com>
Date: Thu Jun 3 12:39:01 2004

>From: "Roger Merchberger" <zmerch_at_30below.com>
>
>Rumor has it that Nico de Jong may have mentioned these words:
>
>> > I have a DEC RX01 drive and the box of floppies that I have
>> > with it are 8 inch single sided single density. Are 8" hard
>> > sectored floppies compatible with these?
>>
>>Hard and Soft sectored disks are never compatible.
>
>Ah, never say never, my friend! ;-)
>
>I know little about 8" floppies, but I know that Apple ][ 5.25" drives
>(which used GCR encoding, IIRC) could use hard or soft sector floppies. It
>actually wrote an "index blip" (for lack of the correct term) on the disk
>itself during format & used that instead of any physical hole(s) in the disk.
>
Hi
 I also believe that one can use hard sectored disk in place of
soft sectored disk in most machines( of course formatted as soft
sectored ).
 There is a difference between single and double
density that is related to the position of the index hole. My
understanding is that unlike the 5-1/4 disks, the 8 in. media
is the same for the single and double density, just higher
quality. In fact, I punch a new index window in some of my
double density 8 inch floppies and I've been using them, with
no troubles, as single density.
 The 5-1/4 disk are a different story. Single/Double don't mix.
Dwight
Received on Thu Jun 03 2004 - 12:39:01 BST