On 05/09/2016 03:12 PM, DerbyDad03 wrote:
On Monday, May 9, 2016 at 3:33:05 PM UTC-4, 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

Speaking of experimenting...

The TRS-80's had a 3-bay 8" floppy expansion unit. It was notorious for
corrupting disks. We'd swap out a drive, test the new one and then put the
case back on. 2 hours/2 days/2 weeks later, we'd get called back for the
same problem.

We finall

snip
tter.

Did I mention that this was a *former* Fortune 500 company?




LOL


I never had a TRS-80

but when I got my Ti-99/4, the ability to save my programs on a cassette
seemed amazing.

It was just like having a miniature main-frame!