Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!crdgw1!ge-dab!tarpit!bilver!bill From: bill@bilver.UUCP (Bill Vermillion) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: UNIX sys V4.0 Message-ID: <1267@bilver.UUCP> Date: 27 Oct 90 18:46:28 GMT References: <1990Oct22.041358.22745@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <2608@cirrusl.UUCP> Reply-To: bill@bilver.UUCP (Bill Vermillion) Organization: W. J. Vermillion - Winter Park, FL Lines: 36 In article <2608@cirrusl.UUCP> dhesi%cirrusl@oliveb.ATC.olivetti.com (Rahul Dhesi) writes: >Those who doubt the importance of this should remember CP/M. Part of >the reason MS-DOS became so popular (apart from the fact that IBM >backed it) was that for the first time in many years, a standard for >magnetic media emerged -- the good old 360 K double-sided double- >density floppy disk. Before this happened, the CP/M world had been a >mish-mash of strange disk formats with varying densities, track and >sector counts, and when everything else matched, different sector >"skew" strategies. The result was that there were somewhere between 50 >and 100 disk formats in existence. Digital Research, having a virtual >monopoly, was in an excellent position to take the lead in setting some >sort of disk format standard, but did not do so. Rahul. There was a standard, and Digital Set it. 8" SD with the standard IBM 128 byte/sec format. ALL CPM machines could read that format. Many went with their own format for their internal working, some with DD, some with SD track 0, and DD the rest. But there was a format. Until people decided there would be 5" diskettes, and then there was NO standard format. If there had been a 5" distribution format specified then all would have been weel and good. And IBM standardized on the 160K disk first, then the 320K, and finally the 360K for distribution, before they changed to the 3.5" 720k which is now their standard. The biggest NON-standard thing IBM did that caused a lot of problems was using a disk controller chip that couldn't read the SD formats of all who had gone before. This is standardization. Gimmee a break! -- Bill Vermillion - UUCP: uunet!tarpit!bilver!bill : bill@bilver.UUCP