From: god_free_jones@yahoo.com   
      
   On Tue, 04 Jul 2006 16:01:50 -0700, James  wrote:   
      
   >When double sided 80 track drives first arrived they ran about $500 each   
   >retail & $400 wholesale in quantity.  We also had to test each one to   
   >make sure it actually worked as there was over an 80% reject rate in the   
   >beginning with the better drive makers.  Others like Shugart & Siemens   
   >just could not get it together at all.  When the Mitsubishi drives   
   >arrived prices had dropped and reliability issues had all but ended.   
   >The 720k/1.44 meg issue created some problems in the beginning but only   
   >for a short time although the MDL I, Mdl III & Mdl III/IV floppy drive   
   >boards were not set up to handle the 1.44 size at the time.  We also   
   >converted a number of machines to the 700x 3 1/2 drives as they became   
   >available.  Now getting the current drives to even recognize the old   
   >700x media is a challenge.  I had, and probably still do somewhere,   
   >software that allowed me to create, read & write the 700x IBM format   
   >which allowed data to be moved over to the early MSx platforms.  Later,   
   >after we move, I will be setting that up again as I have over 1,000   
   >disks of data that I need to port over for archiving, if I can still   
   >read them.  Time allowing I will also be going back to my original   
   >avocation of diddling the hardware & OS just for the fun of it.  At that   
   >time I will be checking back here to see what other issues have come up   
   >to see if I can help.  I did try booting the old box about a month ago &   
   >the old Elephant disk booted just fine so there is still fire in the hole.   
   >   
   >Good luck and hang in there.  The old WD1770 disk controller set was one   
   >of the most versatile & controllable chips sets out there.   
   >   
   >BTW my old DSDD 80T drives had over 790k of space on them after a little   
   >  tweaking.   
      
   I had a desktop computer with a full height 5.25" floppy and full height 5.25"   
   10 meg hard drive. Amazingly the floppy drive turned out to have 80 tracks and   
   use   
   variable motor speed and variable number of sectors per track to allow it to   
   store   
   1.1 megabytes per disk.   
      
   >James   
      
   Barry   
   =====   
   Home page   
   http://members.iinet.net.au/~barry.og   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)