How floppy disks fit in their product range, I don't know.
There are still legacy systems around the world that still use floppies. These tend to be isolated, stand alone (not connected to a network or the Internet) and are dedicated to a single purpose. Some consider them very secure because they are totally isolated.
I have never run into a single sided double density floppy that could not be notched and formatted by a 1541 on the opposite side, going back to 1984. I have accumulated well over a thousand of them in storage, way more than I'll probably never need.
I can't say I had over a 1000 but definitely had at least 600. And I never ran into one that didn't work on the second side either. IMO, that just means the manufacturers were pretty strict in their quality assurance - something you don't see very often these days.
Media rot is exaggerated, too, while we're on the subject. Disks I formatted and wrote back in the 80s still work like a champ today. They have to be deteriorating at least somewhat
It is exaggerated but also inconsistent so the reports probably reflect worst-case scenarios more so than "normal" scenarios. Media rot is affected by many variables. The data density capacity is a factor. The greater the density, the smaller the magnetic particles and the easier it is for them to "drift" and/or be influenced by outside forces. Single and double density disks required pretty strong magnetic fields to move the particles. Quad density used smaller particles and a much weaker magnetic field. That was great for packing more data on the disk, but it also meant outside influences could more easily corrupt the data. Smaller particles also meant a smaller drift would make the bit unreadable.
This included affects of disks stored next to each other. That said, reel-to-reel tape would last for years in storage too and each layer of tape on the reel was much closer to the next layer and still, "magnetic bleed through" took a very long time to become a factor.
Not sure your cool, dry basement had a direct impact in preserving the data but probably helped preserve the materials used by the media and so in turn, protected the data.
Wasn't that a good bit more complicated than that? Trying to remember how exactly that worked for 5.25" but initially there was a notch on both sides for double-sided disks because at first you needed to physically turn the disk over to read the other side.
Ummm, no, sorry. You're confused.
Yes,
"IF" the disk was
marketed as "
double-sided", that meant both sides already passed quality testing so then the maker inserted the floppy in a sleeve that was already notched.
This punch was designed to be used on disks that were marketed as "
single-sided" because the 2nd side failed quality testing. They were then inserted in a sleeve that was
not already notched so it could not be written to on the 2nd side. Hence the need for the punch.
And the ONLY reason one had to physically turn the disk over was because the earlier drives could only read/write to one side. In later years, as you noted, you did not have to flip the disks over because the drives were made to read/write both sides of double-sided disks without flipping. HOWEVER, even when dual head drives came out, the "double-sided" disk still needed a notch on both sides so the drive would know it was a double-side floppy inserted.
Then, if we wanted to protect one or both sides, we had to place one of those pieces of tape that came in each box over the notch to block the sensor's light.
Pretty sure all 3.5 inch floppies were double-sided so different story for them.
IIRC, MS-DOS 6.22 was the first DOS version that was available on 3.5" floppies. My previous versions, which for some reason, I cannot find
(guessing the Ex tossed them
) came on a bunch of 5 1/4 inch floppies.
BTW - I am NOT getting email notifications for any replies in this thread. Anyone else having the same issue?
Just in case Windows truly goes to shit some day.
