4 ms·

So, all of it fits on a floppy? Nice.

by oeuviz 8y ago

timw4mail 8y ago
Not quite. Considering the most common floppies stored a bit less than 1.44MB.
- segfaultbuserr 8y ago
  One feature of floppy disks is that the recording technology and the format is independent from the physical medium, the limitations are mostly imposed by the disk drive, the encoding and the file system, not the medium itself. Well, this "feature" creates significant compatibility issues as all the vendors created their own proprietary formats, sometimes with patents. As a result, together with the economics of scale, often, the standard format is not the best design, a simpler design that serves as the lowest common denominator. On the other hand, due to this feature, it was already possible to store 1,760 KB of data on a 3-1/2 inch HD floppy on a 1986 Amiga. And in 2000, it was possible to store 32 MiB of data on a standard 1.44 MB floppy disk, by using a SuperDisk LS-240 drive (although random write is sacrificed, the entire floppy must be rewritten if a change is needed, like CD-RWs). I believe the advancements in magnetic recording technology in the past 20 years allows one to achieve even higher capacity on a standard floppy, and it can be as cheap as early floppy drives if mass produced, only that it doesn't make sense to do so.
  - MisterTea 8y ago
    I always wanted to know how far you could push the capacity of an old standard density floppy drive if one hacked on modern control electronics. Things like adding more tracks and variable sectors per track. Though I think you'd be limited by the magnetic density of the media and physical head size. Still, it would be fun to see just how much more data you could squeeze onto an old 1.44MB floppy.
    - timw4mail 8y ago
      The issue then becomes how do you properly protect the magnetic medium inside.
      - segfaultbuserr 8y ago
        This is especially problematic for the last bunch of floppies produced in the late 90s. According to some anecdotes, due to the popularity of PCs at this time, vendors implemented various cost-saving measures to drive the price down, as a result, the magnetic medium inside had the lowest quality in the entire history of floppy disks and extremely unreliable... Meanwhile, many 5-1/4 inch disks from old mainframes are still working today.

So, all of it fits on a floppy? Nice.

by oeuviz 8y ago

So, all of it fits on a floppy? Nice.

timw4mail 8y ago

Not quite. Considering the most common floppies stored a bit less than 1.44MB.

segfaultbuserr 8y ago
One feature of floppy disks is that the recording technology and the format is independent from the physical medium, the limitations are mostly imposed by the disk drive, the encoding and the file system, not the medium itself. Well, this "feature" creates significant compatibility issues as all the vendors created their own proprietary formats, sometimes with patents. As a result, together with the economics of scale, often, the standard format is not the best design, a simpler design that serves as the lowest common denominator. On the other hand, due to this feature, it was already possible to store 1,760 KB of data on a 3-1/2 inch HD floppy on a 1986 Amiga. And in 2000, it was possible to store 32 MiB of data on a standard 1.44 MB floppy disk, by using a SuperDisk LS-240 drive (although random write is sacrificed, the entire floppy must be rewritten if a change is needed, like CD-RWs). I believe the advancements in magnetic recording technology in the past 20 years allows one to achieve even higher capacity on a standard floppy, and it can be as cheap as early floppy drives if mass produced, only that it doesn't make sense to do so.
- MisterTea 8y ago
  I always wanted to know how far you could push the capacity of an old standard density floppy drive if one hacked on modern control electronics. Things like adding more tracks and variable sectors per track. Though I think you'd be limited by the magnetic density of the media and physical head size. Still, it would be fun to see just how much more data you could squeeze onto an old 1.44MB floppy.
  - timw4mail 8y ago
    The issue then becomes how do you properly protect the magnetic medium inside.
    - segfaultbuserr 8y ago
      This is especially problematic for the last bunch of floppies produced in the late 90s. According to some anecdotes, due to the popularity of PCs at this time, vendors implemented various cost-saving measures to drive the price down, as a result, the magnetic medium inside had the lowest quality in the entire history of floppy disks and extremely unreliable... Meanwhile, many 5-1/4 inch disks from old mainframes are still working today.