Re: Diskette size (was: Repurposed Art (ahem...)

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

On Fri, 21 Jul 2017, Sam O'nella wrote:
Extremely interesting Fred. I hadn't heard of half of those experimental 
disk sizes. ??Are those stories from your experience or from that 
article? (Yes I'll rtfm shortly).


Definitely my experiences and presence in the business at the time, NOT 
from article (although one of the two articles was a copy of what I said a 
previous time that I posted here).   The Massaro and Sollman material was 
from the CHM article.


I was around then.  I was not in the middle of it, but it was all heavily 
discussed in the trade publications, at Comdex, etc.   More than a few 
arguments about the different "shirt pocket" disks.
We seriously believed that the major contenders for becoming the standard 
were:

3"(for technical superiority)
3.25" (for Dysan's software publishing effort to make it the standard)
3.5"  (Sony and HP, and later Apple.  and later IBM which clinched it)
3.9"  (Brown/Tabor)  (because it was announced by IBM)

I gave short shrift to the many other entrants with my dismissive
"3.9", 2.9", 2.8", and several others, never caught on."
Much more should be recorded, such as the spiral track 2.9" (Mitsumi?), 
etc.
I consider the twiggy to be only a a slightly modified 5.25" - if you cut 
another thumb slot (the hole that lets you get fingerprints onto the 
media) in the jacket, you can make usable Twiggy diskettes out of ordinary 
HD ("1.2M") diskettes.
Amlyn (1.2M before 5170?) had an extra square hole for the jukebox to 
grab.

Likewise, 48tpi/96tpi/100tpi are just variants.

BTW, my Micropolis 48tpi was the most reliable TRS-80 drive that I had.
The 100tpi was interesting, but I didn't get into it much.  It came with a 
copy of Micopolis OS for TRS-80!


Although Chuck mentioned Dysan putting on hub rings, Verbatim (who were 
selling more) didn't do so until later.  Therefore, some had 
hub-ring; some didn't.  Office workers might as well have been told, "put 
the ones with hub rings into the drive with the asterisk", since lack of 
hub-ring and lack of asterisk mean nothing.
Note: One of the options for The Berkeley Microcomputer Flip-Jig (MY 
first retail product) was a jig on the side of it for aligning and 
installing hub-rings.



By analogy, most here could talk about the myriad ID,OD,voltage,polarity 
of coaxial barrel power connectors, 20mA,RS232,"Centronics" parallel, and 
USB, mini-USB, micro-USB, USB-C.  And then, in a few decades be 
very pleasantly surprised if anybody ever calls it "extremely interesting"!

(or the story of the ascendency of Google)


I had heard the story of Adkisson and the bar napkin, and then years 
later, saw it in a sidebar in Byte? Computerworld?.  GOOGLEing for 
details on it, I stumbled on the CHM "Oral History" acticle.  In that, 
Massaro and Sollman dispute that story.

I have now found some more discussion/argument of details:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AHistory_of_the_floppy_disk#The_5_.C2.BC-inch_Napkin_Urban_Legend
Massaro and Sollman also talk about Steve Jobs pestering them to make a 
$100 drive (to be sold for $500), but as Chuck pointed out, 
that doesn't fit with the timelin!, casting some doubts on their 
recollections, and thus even casts doubt on their refutation of the bar 
napkin story.


I would really love to see novelty cocktail napkins with a picture of a 
floppy on them.  No, not a little photo somewhere random on it - I mean a 
5.25" napkin with a square "notch" printed on one side, an oval printed on 
it for thumbprints, concentric large circles in the middle, and small 
printed "index hole" circle.  Optionally, where the label would be could 
be the maker's text.  Optionally, the Adkisson story printed on the back.
I will not assert ownership rights to the idea if somebody who makes them 
will send me one or two!



The other article that I mentioned is an RICM (Rhode Island Computer 
Museum?) webpage with outright theft of a post that I made here on a 
previous occasion when I said most of the same things.  It is entirely my 
wording, including several inaccurate quotes of George Morrow (Sellam? 
negotiated with George's widow for public release of "Quotations From 
Chairman Morrow"!)
Lack of attribution is no big deal, but the insertion of "RICM notes that" 
at the beginning of an otherwise unaltered one of my paragraphs turns 
failure to acknowledge authorship into THEFT of authorship.


"The simplistic style is partly explained by the fact that its editors, 
having to meet a publishing deadline, copied the information off the back 
of a packet of breakfast cereal, hastily embroidering it with a few foot 
notes in order to avoid prosecution under the incomprehensibly torturous 
Galactic Copyright Laws. Its interesting to note that a later and wilier 
editor sent the book backwards in time, through a temporal warp, and then 
successfully sued the breakfast cereal company for infringement of the 
same laws."  - HHGTTG



The only odd one i have is a backup 
cartridge? that resembles 

Re: Diskette size (was: Repurposed Art (ahem...)

[Adrian Graham via cctalk]

> On 21 Jul 2017, at 11:46, Liam Proven via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> I was aware of Twiggy disks, Hitachi 3" as used in Amstrad and Tatung,
> and of one that I think Fred _didn't_ mention: the 2" 720 kB diskettes
> used in the Zenith Minisport:
> 
> http://oldcomputers.net/zenith-minisport.html
> 
> ... but none of the rest.
> 
> We all know what 3.5" diskettes were called in South Africa, right?

Yep :)

I have a Facit9911 2 11/16” (or 70mm in new money) microfloppy drive with a 
mahoosive interface module which google turns up precisely nothing about. I’m 
pretty sure I’ve mentioned it here before but even a search of the archive 
turns up nothing.

See pic - http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/facit9911MicroFloppy.jpg

—
Adrian/Witchy
Binary Dinosaurs - Celebrating Computing History from 1972 onwards

Re: Diskette size (was: Repurposed Art (ahem...)

[Liam Proven via cctalk]

On 21 July 2017 at 07:03, Sam O'nella via cctalk  wrote:
> Extremely interesting Fred. I hadn't heard of half of those experimental disk 
> sizes.  Are those stories from your experience or from that article? (Yes 
> I'll rtfm shortly).
> The only odd one i have is a backup cartridge? that resembles around a 3.5" 
> but is in fact closer to the mythical 12" floppy. Actually here's the picture 
> i brought 8", 5.25" and a CED to show size comparison. 
> http://www.main.org/ctacs/history/2015/20151001/20151001ctacs3744.html
> null

Ditto!

I was aware of Twiggy disks, Hitachi 3" as used in Amstrad and Tatung,
and of one that I think Fred _didn't_ mention: the 2" 720 kB diskettes
used in the Zenith Minisport:

http://oldcomputers.net/zenith-minisport.html

... but none of the rest.

We all know what 3.5" diskettes were called in South Africa, right?

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • Google Mail/Talk/Plus: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven • Skype/LinkedIn/AIM/Yahoo: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 • ČR/WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal: +420 702 829 053

Re: Diskette size (was: Repurposed Art (ahem...)

[Steve Malikoff via cctalk]

Eric said:
> I think Shugart settled on 5.25" for the size of a minifloppy at least a
> year, and more likely two years, before Steve Jobs would have visited. I
> don't have proof, but SA400 public intro was in 1976, and they probably
> took more than a year of development to get to that point.

For interest there's an SA-400 announcement article on page 86 of BYTE, 
December 1976:
https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1976-12

Steve.

Re: Diskette size (was: Repurposed Art (ahem...)

[Sam O'nella via cctalk]

Extremely interesting Fred. I hadn't heard of half of those experimental disk 
sizes.  Are those stories from your experience or from that article? (Yes I'll 
rtfm shortly).
The only odd one i have is a backup cartridge? that resembles around a 3.5" but 
is in fact closer to the mythical 12" floppy. Actually here's the picture i 
brought 8", 5.25" and a CED to show size comparison. 
http://www.main.org/ctacs/history/2015/20151001/20151001ctacs3744.html
null

Re: Diskette size (was: Repurposed Art (ahem...)

[Eric Smith via cctalk]

On Jul 19, 2017 10:15 AM, "Fred Cisin via cctalk" 
wrote:
> That Steve Jobs was pestering them for a cheap drive, but due to the
holes in his jeans and personal hygiene?, they never took him seriously.

I think Shugart settled on 5.25" for the size of a minifloppy at least a
year, and more likely two years, before Steve Jobs would have visited. I
don't have proof, but SA400 public intro was in 1976, and they probably
took more than a year of development to get to that point.

There's evidence in engineering notes recently published indicating that
Woz did some design work using a normal SA400 before Shugart was convinced
to sell Apple the SA390, which was the SA400 sans the standard drive
electronics PCB.

Re: Diskette size (was: Repurposed Art (ahem...)

[Anders Nelson via cctalk]

"That is why they switched from 8 foot to 5.25 foot floppies."

LOL

On Wed, Jul 19, 2017 at 12:15 PM Fred Cisin via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> >> Did any one ever use keypunch to tape or 8' floppy?
> On Wed, 19 Jul 2017, Mike Stein via cctalk wrote:
> > Those 8' floppies were a PITA to handle and store, but
> > they sure held a lot of data...
> > ;-P
>
> That is why they switched from 8 foot to 5.25 foot floppies.
>
>
> Punchcard size is reputed to have been chosen for use of readily available
> currency bins (was the dollar bill reduced in size as a reflection of its
> declining value :-?
>
> 8 inch floppies (1971 23FD) were intended to be stored like 8.5x11 paper.
>
>
> I'd like to find more info about the decision of 5.25 inch.
>
> http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Oral_History/5.25_3.5_Floppy_Drive/5.25_and_3.5_Floppy_Panel.oral_history.2005.102657925.pdf
> is one of the only sources.
>
> In it,
> Don Massaro, of Shugart Associates, says that they chose 5.25" as the
> smallest that they could make a diskette that COULD NOT be put in a shirt
> pocket, deliberately avoiding that particular method of damaging a
> diskette.
>
> They all agree that Wang was the impetus.  That Steve Jobs was pestering
> them for a cheap drive, but due to the holes in his jeans and personal
> hygiene?, they never took him seriously.
>
> George Sollman said that the drive size was shosen to match tape drives.
>
> (also mentioned in a sidebar in Byte 35? years ago:)
> However Jimmy Adkisson of Shugart Associates claims that they were in a
> bar with Dr. Wang and his people, and when they asked Wang what size it
> should be, he picked up a bar napkin.  Adkisson took the napkin back to
> the office and measured it.   I want to find out what bar, and whether
> that bar has personalized napkins!
> (I'd also like to get novelty napkins printed up with a picture of a
> diskette and a copy of that story printed on the back!)
>
>
> Later, there was the "battle of the shirt-pocket disks" between 3"
> (Amstrad), 3.25" (Dysan) and 3.5" (Sony).  Dysan, who did not want to
> retool to make hard-shell 3" or 3.5", designed a 3.25" floppy floppy.
> They made the seemingly sensible assumption that the size conflict would
> be won by whichever had software available, and they bet the company on a
> 3.25" software publishing venture.  Almost all MAJOR programs were
> available on 3.25" diskettes, even though the Seequia Chameleon 325 was
> the only computer that ever made it to market with a 3.25" drive.
> 3.9", 2.9", 2.8", and several others, never caught on.
>
>
> HP and Apple went with Sony 3.5", and when IBM also went 3.5" (abandoning
> their announced 3.9"), that sealed it.
> The earliest 3.5" disks (I have a few "Shugart" ones) had no shutter.
> Then there was a sliding spring loaded shutter, with a place on the disk
> to labelled "PINCH" (with an arrow) to release the shutter.
> When full automatic shutters came out, the word "PINCH" was dropped, but
> the arrow was left on as a reminder of which direction the disk went into
> the drive, even though it only went in one way (unlike 8" and 5.25" disks
> that would fit into the drive 8 ways)
>
>
> It is also amusing about the distortions in memory perceptions.
> I have a [slightly crashed] RAMAC? 24" 100K? platter.  I would show it to
> my students.  Whenever it was mentioned later, the students would recall
> it as being "three or four feet diameter!"
>
> Similarly, we often waste time in futile attempts to track down "ten inch"
> and "twelve inch" floppy stories that were simply misremembrances of 8".
> (If you don't believe that, FIND ONE)
>
>
> http://www.ricomputermuseum.org/Home/shirt-pocket-diskette
> is an UNCREDITED direct copy of a post that I made in this group.
> Lack of attribution isn't very bad.   But adding "RICM notes that" on the
> beginning of one of my paragraphs turns that into theft.  (3 of less than
> 10 words changed)
> Is the rest of "their" content also similarly plagiarized?
> Are the pictures of THEIR collection, or unauthorized copies of other
> people's pictures?
>
> --
> Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com
>
-- 
--
Anders Nelson
+1 (517) 775-6129
www.erogear.com

Diskette size (was: Repurposed Art (ahem...)

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

Did any one ever use keypunch to tape or 8' floppy?

On Wed, 19 Jul 2017, Mike Stein via cctalk wrote:

Those 8' floppies were a PITA to handle and store, but
they sure held a lot of data...
;-P


That is why they switched from 8 foot to 5.25 foot floppies.


Punchcard size is reputed to have been chosen for use of readily available 
currency bins (was the dollar bill reduced in size as a reflection of its 
declining value :-?


8 inch floppies (1971 23FD) were intended to be stored like 8.5x11 paper.


I'd like to find more info about the decision of 5.25 inch.
http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Oral_History/5.25_3.5_Floppy_Drive/5.25_and_3.5_Floppy_Panel.oral_history.2005.102657925.pdf
is one of the only sources.

In it,
Don Massaro, of Shugart Associates, says that they chose 5.25" as the 
smallest that they could make a diskette that COULD NOT be put in a shirt 
pocket, deliberately avoiding that particular method of damaging a 
diskette.


They all agree that Wang was the impetus.  That Steve Jobs was pestering 
them for a cheap drive, but due to the holes in his jeans and personal 
hygiene?, they never took him seriously.


George Sollman said that the drive size was shosen to match tape drives.

(also mentioned in a sidebar in Byte 35? years ago:)
However Jimmy Adkisson of Shugart Associates claims that they were in a 
bar with Dr. Wang and his people, and when they asked Wang what size it 
should be, he picked up a bar napkin.  Adkisson took the napkin back to 
the office and measured it.   I want to find out what bar, and whether 
that bar has personalized napkins!
(I'd also like to get novelty napkins printed up with a picture of a 
diskette and a copy of that story printed on the back!)



Later, there was the "battle of the shirt-pocket disks" between 3" 
(Amstrad), 3.25" (Dysan) and 3.5" (Sony).  Dysan, who did not want to 
retool to make hard-shell 3" or 3.5", designed a 3.25" floppy floppy. 
They made the seemingly sensible assumption that the size conflict would 
be won by whichever had software available, and they bet the company on a 
3.25" software publishing venture.  Almost all MAJOR programs were 
available on 3.25" diskettes, even though the Seequia Chameleon 325 was 
the only computer that ever made it to market with a 3.25" drive.

3.9", 2.9", 2.8", and several others, never caught on.


HP and Apple went with Sony 3.5", and when IBM also went 3.5" (abandoning 
their announced 3.9"), that sealed it.

The earliest 3.5" disks (I have a few "Shugart" ones) had no shutter.
Then there was a sliding spring loaded shutter, with a place on the disk 
to labelled "PINCH" (with an arrow) to release the shutter.
When full automatic shutters came out, the word "PINCH" was dropped, but 
the arrow was left on as a reminder of which direction the disk went into 
the drive, even though it only went in one way (unlike 8" and 5.25" disks 
that would fit into the drive 8 ways)



It is also amusing about the distortions in memory perceptions.
I have a [slightly crashed] RAMAC? 24" 100K? platter.  I would show it to 
my students.  Whenever it was mentioned later, the students would recall 
it as being "three or four feet diameter!"


Similarly, we often waste time in futile attempts to track down "ten inch" 
and "twelve inch" floppy stories that were simply misremembrances of 8".

(If you don't believe that, FIND ONE)


http://www.ricomputermuseum.org/Home/shirt-pocket-diskette
is an UNCREDITED direct copy of a post that I made in this group.
Lack of attribution isn't very bad.   But adding "RICM notes that" on the 
beginning of one of my paragraphs turns that into theft.  (3 of less than 
10 words changed)

Is the rest of "their" content also similarly plagiarized?
Are the pictures of THEIR collection, or unauthorized copies of other 
people's pictures?


--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com