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From: toma@tekgvs.TEK.COM (Tom Almy)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: IBM PS/2
Message-ID: <2580@tekgvs.TEK.COM>
Date: Thu, 20-Aug-87 10:39:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: tekgvs.2580
Posted: Thu Aug 20 10:39:27 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Aug-87 14:36:53 EDT
References: <1338@dataio.Data-IO.COM> <3735@well.UUCP> <1426@chinet.UUCP>
Reply-To: toma@tekgvs.UUCP (Tom Almy)
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR.
Lines: 25

In article <1426@chinet.UUCP> ward@chinet.UUCP (Ward Christensen-) writes:
>  Re: 720K diskettes, etc: I buy generic 720K'ers from 1-800-USA-FLEX, and
>was VERY surprised they formatted to 1.44M first time I tried it on
>a PS/2-50!  I fully expected the "density identification hole" on the
>2M diskettes to be read by the drive, but, sigh, no.

***THIS IS A BAD IDEA***
	The magnetic properties of the 2Meg diskettes are different than that
of the 1Meg.  Even if the disk formats without error, data you place on 
the disk could vanish over time.  IBM decided to save a buck by leaving
the sensor out.  This same identical problem exists with the PC/AT's 1.2 Meg
floppy drives.  If you format a "normal" floppy for 1.2 meg, then you take
BIG risks.

	For those old-timers out there, this problem is far more severe than
the trick of using single sided disks in double sided drives or single
density disks in double density drives.  

	Don't skip on disks, they represent such a small percentage of the
system cost yet the information they hold is far more valuable than the disks
(or usually even the entire system).
	

Tom Almy
toma@tekgvs.TEK.COM