On 5 June 2016 at 17:19, Chuck Guzis <[email protected]> wrote: > I doubt it. The ED floppy did not come at a good time. Clone (okay, > second-source) manufacturers had adopted the HD format wholesale and the > price of HD floppies themselves had dropped to the level of DD prices. > By 1990, most if not all, new PCs had HD droves and even Apple was able > to understand the PC format. When ED floppies were released to the > general unwashed public, integrated FDCs largely could not handle the > 1Mbps data rate, so adopting the format meant changing the FDC (fraught > with problems if said FDC was integrated into the motherboard) and > buying a new drive and expensive media. Perhaps the media price would > have fallen if adopted. That's not a sure thing, however--prices never > fell on floptical (3M superdisk, Caleb SHD, etc.) media. > > Also, by 1990, IBM was no longer an industry leader in PCs, nor did it > set the technical standards (MCA pretty much did that in). > > But I don't think that a high-capacity Zip would have made a dent in the > CD-R market. I'm not aware of many consumer-grade audio players that > can handle Zip disks of any stripe. > > Too little, too late is probably another aspect.
Hmm. I got a blog post out of this: http://liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/49563.html ... where I developed the idea slightly. Others on FB agree with you. The HD 3.5" (1.4MB under MS-DOS) floppy itself was a big leap from the DD (720kB) one. Most of the 16-bitters never made it: the disk controllers of the Atari ST, Amiga, etc. couldn't handle it. AFAIK there's only one ZX Spectrum interface that did -- the Czech MB02: http://www.benophetinternet.nl/hobby/mb02/ I must confess I rather fancy one. :-) So, yes, ED was a big step, but so was HD in its time. I think the IBM PS/2 (1987) was the origin, right? And there was never a 720kB IBM standard, only on things like Apricots. According to Wikipedia... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk#Sizes.2C_performance_and_capacity ... the 3.5" timeline was: * 1983 -- SS/DD * 1984 -- DS/DD, probably the most widespread * 1986 -- HD, the PC standard * 1987 -- ED, the 2.8MB ones that didn't catch on * 1991 -- 21MB floptical * 1994 -- 100MB Zip * 1996 -- 120MB floptical * 1997 -- 240MB floptical That gap from '87 to the equally unsuccessful 21MB format, was the killer, IMHO. If everyone had adopted the ~3MB disks, it might have lived, but that probably wasn't enough on its own. Thus my speculation as to whether pure magnetic ~6MB diskettes might have been viable around 1988-1989 and ~12MB ones around 1990. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: [email protected] • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: [email protected] • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
