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From: mcmillan@harpsichord.cis.ohio-state.edu (Harold McMillan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: 3.5" Floppy Disk Drives
Message-ID: <106815@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date: 12 Apr 91 15:24:16 GMT
References: <1991Apr11.204600.15805@val.com> <1991Apr12.123813.10913@agate.berkeley.edu> <1991Apr12.131946.332@mlb.semi.harris.com>
Sender: news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
Organization: The Ohio State University, Department of Computer and Information Science
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My wife formats DD disks at 1.44 all the time at work on her PS/2.  We
just got a new machine at home with a 3.5" drive.  This drive will not
read a DD disk formatted at 1.44.  Is this normal?  A 5.25" drive
doesn't need a sense hole to tell a 360 from a 1.2.  Also, my drive
will not format an HD to 720K.  Now I can understand that
manufacturers want to "protect" us from formatting a DD to 1.44M, but
why shouldn't I be allowed to format an HD to 720K?

On a slight tangent, how was it that we refer to the capacity of an HD
disk as 1.44M?  Isn't is really 1440K?  1M is not 1,024,000; it is
1,048,576.  1440K divided by 1M is almost exactly 1.4 (1.40625).  So
why don't we call them 1.4M (which would be shorter and more
accurate)? 

Just rambling,
	Hal
--
Hal McMillan                | "It's an ideal principle, which can be verified
mcmillan@cis.ohio-state.edu |  only under ideal conditions.  Which means never.
72627.642@CompuServe.com    |  But it's still true."