4 ms·

I just want to quietly grumble, like an appropriately crotchety old man... '3.5" floppies? Bah! Try 8", and they were really floppy! Try installing AT&T Unix fr

I just want to quietly grumble, like an appropriately crotchety old man... '3.5" floppies? Bah! Try 8", and they were really floppy! Try installing AT&T Unix from those...'

deathanatos 5y ago
I'm probably not old enough to qualify as "crotchety old man", but yeah, 3.5" are diskettes to me since they weren't really floppies. I raise your floppy disk install one OS/2 Warp install: https://twitter.com/jhegarty/status/1162326199445655552/photo/1 https://twitter.com/jhegarty/status/1162326199445655552/phot... I still feel that OS/2 Warp feels more valuable in ones hands, just because of the sheer weight of it… (compared to modern OSes that have no weight because I download them…)
- zwieback 5y ago
  The research org where I was interning bought OS/2 1.2 for a project and I loved it. When 2.0 came out I called the local IBM site (this was in Stuttgart Germany) and they told me "we have a new beta program, just bring 20 3.5" floppies and you can copy it, no questions asked". I went there, did the deed and the guy told me. You want the SDK and C compiler as well? Come back with 20 more floppies. You can bet I was back the next day.
- niccl 5y ago
  in South Africa they were known as stiffies, which has a different meaning in some cultures
  - Synaesthesia 5y ago
    Surely not just here, right?
  - animal531 5y ago
    I was just about to reply with the same comment, but I see you beat me to it.
- ddalcino 5y ago
  In middle school I was taught that 5.25" diskettes were "floppies", and 3.5" diskettes were "hard disks", because of the hard plastic case. It was awesome.
  - unixhero 5y ago
    Many teachers tried to convince me that the computer chassis was called the CPU.
- wdb 5y ago
  OS/Warp 4 and it's Describe/2 was the best!
- hunter2_ 5y ago
  It's been so long since I've seen the word "diskette" that upon seeing it, I just had a crazy a-ha moment: could it be that the convention of "disk=magnetic, disc=optical" is based on the fact that they were all originally discs but the c was changed to k for magnetic media in order to facilitate the spelling of diskette (since discette with a c doesn't really work)? Or put another way, disk is just an abbreviated version of diskette which is a small disc, and therefore a tiny optical disc might also be rightfully called a disk?
  - floatingatoll 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison_Disc_Record https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison_Disc_Record I prefer your explanation, but I suspect it's also a chain of events from "Edison Disc Record" to "Compact Disc". The link is "Audio", absent from both product names. Maybe it will just be called an "audio" someday! "Hey, I have an audio of that new band Named!" Hooray, it works in a sentence. Sold.
  - Symbiote 5y ago
    I think it's much simpler: Diskettes, floppy disks etc were invented in the USA, where the standard spelling is "disk". Compact discs were invented by Philips, who probably preferred the British spelling "disc", and Sony, who probably didn't care. You can find the spelling "hard disc" in RISC OS, a 1990s British operating system: https://www.riscos.info/index.php/Introduction_to_RISC_OS#Using_RISC_OS https://www.riscos.info/index.php/Introduction_to_RISC_OS#Us...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- mikestew 5y ago
  3.5" disks were floppy, but they were placed in a hard shell casing. Still floppy, though, unlike a hard drive platter.
pram 5y ago
Actually if you had the tape it was easier than disks. That was a regression
thatwasunusual 5y ago
I'm only (...) old enough to have experienced 3.5" and 5.25" disks/floppies. But, damn, did I experience them! :)
dylan604 5y ago
The CMX video editor I learned to edit on used these. By the time I was learning on it in '92, it was already an old system but still the top system. All it held was text based EDLs, so it didn't need a lot of space. Once the smaller hub based tapes like 30min BCSP/Digibeta were available, the floppy holding the EDL was bigger than the tape holding the image data. I kinda miss the old tape based edit rooms.
jaclaz 5y ago
Just in case: https://tinyapps.org/blog/200702250700_why_in_my_day.html https://tinyapps.org/blog/200702250700_why_in_my_day.html
BizarroLand 5y ago
When I was a kid you had to grease your own hard drives! But kids these days, they got no appreciation!
- WaitWaitWha 5y ago
  I do not recall greasing HDDs (the 70's Control Data drives, the ones that looked like top loading washing mashing inserts, yes you had to lube those), but the Seagate 40MB HDDs (to me the first real consumer HDD) had a bearing lubricant problem, where it would get too thin over time and mess up timing. The solution was to put it in the fridge for a few minutes, read as much as possible off before the lube got thin again. The tribal knowledge why we put very specific HDDs in the fridge got lost, but people still stick failing HDDs into fridges... go figure.

I just want to quietly grumble, like an appropriately crotchety old man... '3.5" floppies? Bah! Try 8", and they were really floppy! Try installing AT&T Unix from those...'

deathanatos 5y ago

I'm probably not old enough to qualify as "crotchety old man", but yeah, 3.5" are diskettes to me since they weren't really floppies. I raise your floppy disk install one OS/2 Warp install: https://twitter.com/jhegarty/status/1162326199445655552/photo/1 https://twitter.com/jhegarty/status/1162326199445655552/phot... I still feel that OS/2 Warp feels more valuable in ones hands, just because of the sheer weight of it… (compared to modern OSes that have no weight because I download them…)

zwieback 5y ago
The research org where I was interning bought OS/2 1.2 for a project and I loved it. When 2.0 came out I called the local IBM site (this was in Stuttgart Germany) and they told me "we have a new beta program, just bring 20 3.5" floppies and you can copy it, no questions asked". I went there, did the deed and the guy told me. You want the SDK and C compiler as well? Come back with 20 more floppies. You can bet I was back the next day.
niccl 5y ago
in South Africa they were known as stiffies, which has a different meaning in some cultures
- Synaesthesia 5y ago
  Surely not just here, right?
- animal531 5y ago
  I was just about to reply with the same comment, but I see you beat me to it.
ddalcino 5y ago
In middle school I was taught that 5.25" diskettes were "floppies", and 3.5" diskettes were "hard disks", because of the hard plastic case. It was awesome.
- unixhero 5y ago
  Many teachers tried to convince me that the computer chassis was called the CPU.
wdb 5y ago
OS/Warp 4 and it's Describe/2 was the best!
hunter2_ 5y ago
It's been so long since I've seen the word "diskette" that upon seeing it, I just had a crazy a-ha moment: could it be that the convention of "disk=magnetic, disc=optical" is based on the fact that they were all originally discs but the c was changed to k for magnetic media in order to facilitate the spelling of diskette (since discette with a c doesn't really work)? Or put another way, disk is just an abbreviated version of diskette which is a small disc, and therefore a tiny optical disc might also be rightfully called a disk?
- floatingatoll 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison_Disc_Record https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison_Disc_Record I prefer your explanation, but I suspect it's also a chain of events from "Edison Disc Record" to "Compact Disc". The link is "Audio", absent from both product names. Maybe it will just be called an "audio" someday! "Hey, I have an audio of that new band Named!" Hooray, it works in a sentence. Sold.
- Symbiote 5y ago
  I think it's much simpler: Diskettes, floppy disks etc were invented in the USA, where the standard spelling is "disk". Compact discs were invented by Philips, who probably preferred the British spelling "disc", and Sony, who probably didn't care. You can find the spelling "hard disc" in RISC OS, a 1990s British operating system: https://www.riscos.info/index.php/Introduction_to_RISC_OS#Using_RISC_OS https://www.riscos.info/index.php/Introduction_to_RISC_OS#Us...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mikestew 5y ago
3.5" disks were floppy, but they were placed in a hard shell casing. Still floppy, though, unlike a hard drive platter.

pram 5y ago

Actually if you had the tape it was easier than disks. That was a regression

thatwasunusual 5y ago

I'm only (...) old enough to have experienced 3.5" and 5.25" disks/floppies. But, damn, did I experience them! :)

dylan604 5y ago

The CMX video editor I learned to edit on used these. By the time I was learning on it in '92, it was already an old system but still the top system. All it held was text based EDLs, so it didn't need a lot of space. Once the smaller hub based tapes like 30min BCSP/Digibeta were available, the floppy holding the EDL was bigger than the tape holding the image data. I kinda miss the old tape based edit rooms.

jaclaz 5y ago

Just in case: https://tinyapps.org/blog/200702250700_why_in_my_day.html https://tinyapps.org/blog/200702250700_why_in_my_day.html

BizarroLand 5y ago

When I was a kid you had to grease your own hard drives! But kids these days, they got no appreciation!

WaitWaitWha 5y ago
I do not recall greasing HDDs (the 70's Control Data drives, the ones that looked like top loading washing mashing inserts, yes you had to lube those), but the Seagate 40MB HDDs (to me the first real consumer HDD) had a bearing lubricant problem, where it would get too thin over time and mess up timing. The solution was to put it in the fridge for a few minutes, read as much as possible off before the lube got thin again. The tribal knowledge why we put very specific HDDs in the fridge got lost, but people still stick failing HDDs into fridges... go figure.