Modern floppy disk question...

[Vintage Computer Festival]

On Wed, 4 May 2005, Jules Richardson wrote:

> Anyone know why modern floppy disks are such total junk? They seem to
> often develop problems after only one or two writes - whereas back in
> the day they were always pretty reliable.

That's a really good question.  I'd like an answer myself.  I routinely
read disks that are 20-25-30 years old with few problems, yet I can't walk
10 feet to another computer and recover a file I just copied onto a modern
3.5" disk without the disk going bad.  Go figure.

> About 25% of Sony branded floppies seem to die on the first format,
> which is nice...

It seems to be all brands.  3Ms are particularly bad as well.

> (I'm trying to remain cheerful here whilst attempting to find a floppy
> that actually works 100%...)

Once you do find one, hang on to it.  They're becoming as precious as
gold.

-- 

Sellam Ismail                                        Vintage Computer Festival
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International Man of Intrigue and Danger                http://www.vintage.org

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