Baslinux mailing list

[Theo Perry <theo.perry AT xtra.co.nz>]

I recall my first time of delving into the works of a computer was when 
I put a second floppy drive into my brand new state-of-the-art Amstrad 
machine back in the early 80's. I was using 360k 5.25 inch floppies and 
the new drive was capable of reading and writing 1.2 meg  5.25 inch 
floppies. Although this drive was reading and writing my existing 360k 
disks, I was very disgusted that a disk written by the 1.2 meg drive, 
even though written on a 360k floppy, could not be read by the (very 
slightly) older 360k drive. IIRC, I was told that the heads on the 
1.2meg drive wrote more accurately than the 360k drive could read. The 
solution, of course, was to replace the original drive as well.

And so, my first lesson in Consumer Computing - If there's a way to make 
you spend twice as much, they'll find it!

And by the way, I kept a couple of old 5.25 inch drives in case I ever 
needed to try and access my old records. I  recently did need to, and 
needless to say, they were not compatible.

Theo Perry

sindi keesan wrote:

> I expect to be seeing postings soon from Jonathan, who picked up his 
> computers yesterday.  The first thing he discovered is that my floppy 
> disks won't work in his old computer, nor his floppy disks in the new 
> ones.  He will learn to use floppymeter.  He had commented that many 
> of his floppy disks appeared to be bad when he tried to transfer files 
> with them.  That was our symptom too, when we tried to format them 
> with a worn-out drive.