Modern floppy disk question...

[JP Hindin]

On Wed, 4 May 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
> 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.

I've always put this down to the vast increase of track density on the
media. Of course, I could be full of fluff, but it would certainly explain
why I can read my 30 year old 8" floppies (Which I could almost use a
microscope to pick out the 0s and 1s) and why 1.44MB (or
greater?) 3.5" disks are such a disappointment.

I also apply this logic to why the latest 300GB Maxtor disk lasts six to
eight months before dying, as opposed to any number of <100MB disks that
cannot be killed. This, however, might be a false excuse - but I like to
use it anyway. (Of course, sometimes I prefer to just say Maxtor's suck
and dream of the day I can afford an all SCSI disk system)

Anyways. My potential delusion unleashed.

JP