Re: what floppy can I use for apple ][e

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

aurejacgil@ifrance.com (Gilles Aurejac) wrote:

>Peter Schranz <schranz@ip-plus.ch> wrote:
>
>> You cannot use HD 5 1/4 Floppies in the AppleII Floppy Diskdrive, the
>> magnetic surface will not be correctly written with the low-power heads of a
>> normal densitiy drive. This is true for any normal densitiy drive. So you

You mean double density drive.

Actually, at least for 3.5 disks, the double-density ones require a
STRONGER magnetic field to write to and the magnetic coating
on the surface of the disk reflects this.  The high density disks
have a coating that can accept a weaker magnetic field.  Because
a weaker field is applied, adjacent data bits can be written closer
together resulting in greater data density.

That's why bit-rot affects higher density disks faster than it affects
lower density ones.

>> need to find normal density Floppies, however you do not need to use
>> single-sided Floppies, you can use the normal 360kb PC Floppies (So called
>> Double Densitiy Double Sided 40 Tracks Floppies). These floppies should
>> still be available. Although there is a trick to use both sides of theses
>> floppies (just make another notch to enable writing and insert them top-side
>> down) I do not recommend this, as the unused surface is mistreated by the
>> felt that preses the floppy against the single read/write head.

It is not really a problem for most disks.  I've opened them before.
They have a diamond shape weave pattern inside each of the
jackets so any dust released by reverse spin is quickly picked
up by the jacket once again.

If it were dangerous, Apple would not have endorsed it.  Yet the
AppleWorks disks were shipped double-sided. 

>thank you, this is very precise and clear, exactly the answer I'd like
>(I now will have to find DD floppy but if I wait a little I'm sure that
>I will find some).
>
>just another question : is there any way to recognize DD floppies from
>HD floppies if there isn't any sticker on it ? The 3.5" floppies have a
>notch to recognize HD from DD but is there anything similar with 5.25?

You can't recognize it without the label.  Generally, the HD ones
have a darker surface, almost black.  The DD ones have a brown
surface.  But this is not always the case.

Just like most high bias casette tapes are black and normal bias
ones brown, but not always the case.