DIYbanter - View Single Post

philo

On 05/09/2016 03:06 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 9 May 2016 14:33:01 -0500, philo wrote:

On 05/09/2016 12:37 PM, DerbyDad03 wrote:

Once Dos 3 came out, it could read any version of Dos above it and visa
versa. The commands would not necessarily work but at least there was
some level of compatibility.

We used to punch index holes in the B-side of 5" and 8" floppies to use
them as dual-sided floppies long before dual-sided was an industry standard.

We told the users that we did this for that they should be cautious with
what they stored on the B-side because they were not "certified" by the
manufacturer, but we saw no greater failure rate on the B-side than the
certified side.

It was never the floppy per se that failed, it was typically the drive that
trashed the floppy. Static was the biggest problem. We had TRS-80 units that
were so bad that the users would touch the plastic case of the keyboard and
the daisy wheel printer would spit out a character.

We hung copper straps from the sprinkler system and attached grounding
bracelets to them. Secretaries would ground themselves to the building
before sitting down to do their word processing.

I did a different bit of experimenting.

I still have an IBM PS/2 with the 2.88 meg floppy drive.

Supposedly it required a special floppy, but I had no problems
formatting a standard 1.44 as a 2.88

IBM PS/2 does not honor the media sense hole.
It all depends on what the media descriptor byte says in the boot
sector.
That can get you in trouble if you are dealing with newer IBM PCs or
c

Since I did this experiment long after the PS/2 was obsolete, it could
simply be that the floppies at that time were better quality than those
that existed at the time the PS/2 would have been in production.

From time to time I thin out my collection of vintage computers but
doubt I will ever part with that PS/2