[HN Gopher] Origins of the 3.5in Floppy Disk [video]
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Origins of the 3.5in Floppy Disk [video]
Author : zdw
Score : 52 points
Date : 2023-10-22 00:04 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| ksec wrote:
| You know we say magnetic media dont last but my 5.25" Floppy Disk
| are still readable last time I tested it in 2020 during COVID
| when I was too bored at home. I have some 8" but the computer
| that had it wouldn't turn on anymore. The PC with 5.25" and 3.5"
| still does.
|
| Not the same could be said about CD though. CDs that were pressed
| are still ok, not so much for burned CD-R. Most of them are full
| or errors when reading it.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > not so much for burned CD-R. Most of them are full or errors
| when reading it.
|
| David Rosenthal tests this periodically. Most recently he
| tested in August. Notice the first sentence of the quote:
| https://blog.dshr.org/2023/08/optical-media-durability-updat...
|
| > The drives I use from ASUS and LG report read errors from the
| CDs but verify the MD5s correctly. I didn't notice them
| reporting any read errors from the DVDs. An off-brand drive
| fails to read the CDs, but read one of the older DVDs with no
| read errors.
|
| > Surprisingly, with no special storage precautions, generic
| low-cost media, and consumer drives, I'm getting good data from
| CD-Rs more than 19 years old, and from DVD-Rs nearly 17 years
| old. Your mileage may vary. Tune in again next year for another
| episode.
|
| > Last year I found a NetBSD1.2 CD dating from October 1996
| whose cksum(1) checksums all verified correctly despite a few
| read errors. That CD was still delivering good data after
| nearly 26 years, but this year a couple of the checksums
| failed.
| gattilorenz wrote:
| That's my experience as well. I recently imaged
|
| - a collection of CD-Roms attached to a computer magazine,
| 1999-2001
|
| - my own collection of stuff downloaded or backed up around
| 2003-2004; most of it on Verbatim DVDs, but some on CD-R or
| CD-RW (likely also from Verbatim)
|
| I had very few read errors, and it was impressive especially
| considering it's more than 50 CDs and that I never payed too
| much attention to how they were stored. Most of the computer
| magazine CDs were stored directly in a "cardboard sleeve",
| not even one of those plastic/paper ones...
| Tor3 wrote:
| My 5.25" ones from the mid-eighties are still readable. As far
| as I can tell the 8" ones are as well, though I haven't tested
| many of them. But their density is low, which helps a lot. And
| that's also why none of my 3.5" 1.44MB floppies are readable -
| the density is a bit too high for what's feasible for that
| physical medium.
|
| I don't know about later ones, but early CD-R easily failed
| after less than a year back when I tried to use them as backup
| media. I quickly abandoned the idea of using them as backup.
| Zardoz84 wrote:
| My 3.5 floppy disks from early 90's keeps being fine. I a few
| months ago, I installed the demo of Hallowen Harry, and the
| Commander Keen 4 copy that comes with the Gravis Game pad, in a
| 486 without issues.
| jimt1234 wrote:
| I heard that 3.5" disks were originally marketed as "stiffies" to
| help differentiate them from "floppies", the older 5.25" and 8"
| disks. But, as the story goes, someone pulled the plug for
| obvious reasons. Not sure if that's true; I want it to be true
| because it's hilarious, though.
| biugbkifcjk wrote:
| Cathode Ray Dude recently put out a new video on YouTube and
| mentions "stiffys" in that too.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lUhDo7euPs
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiffy_disk
| jerriep wrote:
| Fun fact: In South Africa we called these a "stiffy" because it
| was so rigid compared to the 51/4-inch floppy.
| tomxor wrote:
| :D Hah perfect, I can totally imagine that with the SA
| accent... and frankly more logical, I never got why they were
| called floppy disks in most of the world considering their
| predecessors.
| chx wrote:
| https://ajovomultja.hu/mcd-1-casette-floppy-marcell-janosi?l...
|
| The rigid floppy was invented in Hungary in 1973, patented in
| 1974 but only in Hungary and Sony have stolen the idea.
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