Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!ll-xn!oberon!eve.usc.edu!mlinar
From: mlinar@eve.usc.edu (Mitch Mlinar)
Newsgroups: comp.os.cpm
Subject: Re: 8" floppy drive probles
Message-ID: <7722@oberon.USC.EDU>
Date: 17 Mar 88 18:40:05 GMT
References: <547@auvax.UUCP> <802@nuchat.UUCP>
Sender: news@oberon.USC.EDU
Reply-To: mlinar@eve.usc.edu (Mitch Mlinar)
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Lines: 27

In article <802@nuchat.UUCP> phillip@nuchat.UUCP (Phillip Keen) writes:
>of your 8" disks and disk drives if you can.  Another reason I say this is I've
>heard that 8" disks and disk drives are unreliable.  I don't know if this
>is true or not but it's a rumor I've heard.

Hogwash!  Where did you here this rumour???

Being exposed to hundreds of 8" users over the past 8 years and using all
three formats (3.5, 5.25, 8.00) myself, I can safely state that NO format is
more reliable than another.

What DOES matter is the quality of the hardware (disk drive and, to some
extent, the disk controller).  Early 8" drives were lousy, but so where 5.25
for that matter.

Personally, I have had errors crop up on all three drives - and cleaning
solved the problem in all cases.  Alignment (if you don't have prehistoric
drives) is rare unless you play frisbee with them (or have a portable that
gets kicked a lot).

Small drives are better for one obvious reason: size.  But I use all three
since I get 1.3M on 8" disks and only 400-800k on 5.25/3.5 in the CP/M world.
8" drives are also 2x faster than 5.25 (if your skew factor is correct).

-Mitch

P.S.  8" drives are also nice for compatibility with other CP/M users,
although the Kaypro format is pretty well known also.