Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!timbuk!cs.umn.edu!uc!noc.MR.NET!gacvx2.gac.edu!gacvx2.gac.edu!scott From: scott@mcs-server.gac.edu (Scott Hess) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: 2.88Mb floppies Message-ID: Date: 10 Jan 91 05:28:18 GMT References: <4379@mindlink.UUCP> Organization: Gustavus Adolphus College Lines: 39 Nntp-Posting-Host: mcs-server.gac.edu In-reply-to: a684@mindlink.UUCP's message of 8 Jan 91 19:40:43 GMTLines: 39 In article <4379@mindlink.UUCP> a684@mindlink.UUCP (Nick Janow) writes: The latest "Byte" mentions that the 20Mb "Flopticals" are almost ready for distribution. To bad they didn't have them ready for the NeXTstation. I guess the 2.88 Mb floppies were just to fill up the space until the floptical drives were available. If the flopticals work well, I doubt that the cost of 2.88 Mb floppies will go down ... if they're even produced. :( I think that this discussion is getting a _weee_ bit ahead of itself. To put a couple things in perspective, I would recommend that those of you who have been in computers for awhile recall the first 10M floppy drives that were out. Regular disks (well, regular like the 2.88s are), but they were too expensive. It seems like my first issues of BYTE have adds for one of them, and that was sometime in 1985. Many, many, many people still run with 720k disks. Heck, there's alot out there still at 360k, or (gasp!) 320k 5.25" disks. The PC world is not going to jump for 20M floppies if the drive costs $800 and the media is $10. They will, meanwhile, jump for 2.88M drives which cost $200 and $5 media, and hoping to fall. Remember that the PC market can drag the rest of us around kicking and screaming - if the PC marker decides to do 2.88M, we will do 2.88M whether we want to or not. And it is looking like the PC marker is going to do 2.88M, at least for awhile. After all, the 2.88M stuff works, because it's not much different, while the 20M stuff might or might not. I'm not trying to say that 20M is _bad_, but I think foretelling the doom of 2.88M because 20M is coming out isn't going to work. Hmm. Is anyone working on getting a Bournelli installed on a NeXT? :-) -- scott hess scott@gac.edu Independent NeXT Developer GAC Undergrad "Tried anarchy, once. Found it had too many constraints . . ." "Buy `Sweat 'n wit '2 Live Crew'`, a new weight loss program by Richard Simmons . . ."