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

[Sean Fahey <a2fan@hotmail.com>]

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.