Re: Did the Apple II use single-density 5.25" drives?

[slickrcbdnews@gmail.com]

On Friday, June 7, 2013 9:39:03 AM UTC-5, Michael Black wrote:
> On Fri, 7 Jun 2013, Sean Fahey wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> > On Friday, June 7, 2013 8:28:00 AM UTC-5, schmidtd wrote:
> 
> >
> 
> >> That's right... the original mechanism specification only required
> 
> >> movement through 35 tracks; I've had early floppy media with some
> 
> >> characteristics like smaller access windows and smaller writable area
> 
> >> that would not allow head movement through 40 tracks.  Time passed, and
> 
> >> media and mechanisms all supported 40 tracks - but OSes on the Apple II
> 
> >> side never expanded to take advantage of it.
> 
> >
> 
> > Diskettes finally got cheap enough that only the stingiest of users 
> 
> > cared about cramming as much data as possible on them. Later on, 
> 
> > everyone I knew who ever used 40 tracks to backup their hard drives 
> 
> > ended up regretting it eventually.
> 
> >
> 
> > I recall my first 3 disks cost me a months allowance and chore money. 
> 
> > I'm kinda glad I wasn't old enough to start dating yet or I'd have been 
> 
> > using cassettes for a few more years. Girlfriends were even more 
> 
> > expensive.
> 
> >
> 
> I still have the bill for the first box of 10 floppy disks I bought, in 
> 
> 1984, it's just under fifty dollars here in Canada.  Of course, that was 
> 
> name brand, "Elephant" if I remember.  I admit I was worried, so I didn't 
> 
> buy the outright cheapest, though I can't remember if generic floppies 
> 
> were out there yet.
> 
> 
> 
> It bugged me that I'd just bought a floppy disk drive and controller, and 
> 
> they hadn't bothered tossing in a blank floppy so I could get going right 
> 
> away.  I seem to recall buying a pack of 2 floppy disks first, so I had 
> 
> something until I spent more money.
> 
> 
> 
> I'd say capacity was an issue.  With my Radio Shack COlor Computer, I 
> 
> found a single 360K floppy a tad small.  I was running Microware OS-9, and 
> 
> I found I had to make multiple boot disks, have the operating system on 
> 
> more than one disk, and then say games added to one, development added to 
> 
> another, writing to another.  I forget exactly, but the operating system 
> 
> ("unix-like") took up enough space that I had to trim in order to add 
> 
> other things.  And then the second floppy drive, when I got it (at a much 
> 
> ower price than the first one), was used for my own files, like text and 
> 
> assembler files.
> 
> 
> 
> I well remember when I got a 3.5" floppy drive, wham double the capacity. 
> 
> So I could put everything I wanted on one disk, OS-9 and the C Compiler 
> 
> and the text editing stuff.  It was suddenly "like a hard drive", large 
> 
> enough that I didn't hve to change disks.
> 
> 
> 
> What a different world it was.
> 
> 
> 
>    Michael