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From: burton@parcvax.Xerox.COM (Philip M. Burton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: new floppy format proposal
Message-ID: <607@parcvax.Xerox.COM>
Date: Fri, 6-Nov-87 01:53:00 EST
Article-I.D.: parcvax.607
Posted: Fri Nov  6 01:53:00 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 15-Nov-87 03:18:14 EST
References: <4289@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> <1155@cup.portal.com>
Reply-To: burton@parcvax.xerox.com.UUCP (Philip M. Burton)
Organization: Xerox PARC
Lines: 47
Keywords: high-density floppy



At the risk of sounding like an old f---, I think the last thing the world
needs is Yet Another Floppy Disk Format (YAFDF).  Even in today's IBM/clone
world, we already have 4 currently viable formats:

5 1/4" "standard" DS/DD
5 1/4" high-density

3 1/2" 720 KB
3 1/2" 1.44 MB

Guys, that's enough!!  When I worked at Shugart, the now gone disk drive
company, we did a calculation that demonstrated that the maximum increase
in capacity from using constant-bit density recording was 100%.  In practice,
the increase would be much less because of finite sector sizes, complexity
of motor speed controls, etc.

The 4X increase in capacity of the 5 1/4" high-density disk, at a much lower
increase in cost, definitely is the way to go.  Much higher capacities are
available in 5 1/4" in the laboratory, which are read-compatible with today's
formats.

However, even four formats is too many, if you have a big population of
systems or you are a software publisher.

Now, for those in the audience who never knew the joys of CP/M systems, 
the lack of disk interchange was one of the notorious problems of that
environment.  Every different company, and there were so many in the
pre-IBM PC days, had a slightly different format.  I even have a file
of about 100 different 5 1/4" and 8" formats, specifying all the different
parameters that uniquely defined YAFDF.  The practical effect was to
kill interchangeability for all but 8" systems that could support the
old SS/SD.  There were, and still are, commercial programs that can
read and write "foreign" formats on CP/M systems.

All in the name of "progress", the customer was screwed.  That's not
progress, that's NIH-ism at its worst.  (Maybe not, RS232C may be worse.)

Flames to /dev/dysan and /dev/verbatim.

 

-- 
Philip Burton       burton.osbunorth@parcvax.COM  
Xerox Corp.         .... !hplabs!parcvax!burton 
408 737 4635    ... the usual disclaimers apply ...