Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!killer!chasm
From: chasm@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Charles Marslett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Are 720K floppies really 1.44M in disguise?
Summary: They are not
Message-ID: <7069@killer.DALLAS.TX.US>
Date: 7 Feb 89 14:08:36 GMT
References: <1140@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU>
Distribution: usa
Organization: The Unix(R) Connection, Dallas, Texas
Lines: 32

In article <1140@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU>, miker@csupwb.colostate.edu (Mike Riley) writes:
> 
> There was an ad in this February's Byte magazine, on p30 that really caught
> my attention.  To summarize, the company advertizing claimed that they had
> a product that would allow you to format 720K disks to 1.44M, reliably.
> 
> The claimed that the media used in both disk types was exactly the same, 
> and that the only reason you couldn't format your 720K disk to 1.44M was
> that the plastic casing was not suitable.

The IBM PS/2 computers got a lot of flack for not even having a sensor
for the extra notch (hole) -- so they cannot even tell which kind of
diskette is installed (at least our early 60 and 50s cannot).  I have
formatted and used some 720K diskettes as 1.44M diskettes, and of 2
boxes of 10 each, perhaps 15 actually would format and operate the
day I formatted them.  On the other hand, none are functional today.

I do not know exactly what the difference is, but don't put anything
permanent on a 720 used as a 1.44!  On the other hand, if you are just
carrying stuff from one machine to another there seems to be no problem.

Charles
>  _________________________________________________________    
> |Mike Riley    Internet: miker@csupwb.ucc.colostate.edu   |
> |              Bitnet:   miker@csugreen.bitnet            |


===========================================================================
Charles Marslett
STB Systems, Inc.  <== Apply all standard disclaimers
Wordmark Systems   <== No disclaimers required -- that's just me
chasm@killer.dallas.tx.us