5 ms·

i started on Unix/SunOS in 1990 then Linux in 1993 (i'm old) and even i have never even _seen_ a real 8" FD! i do recall using 5 1/4" FDs (though i can't rememb

i started on Unix/SunOS in 1990 then Linux in 1993 (i'm old) and even i have never even _seen_ a real 8" FD! i do recall using 5 1/4" FDs (though i can't remember what for).

simonblack 2y ago
Used 'em all. (UNIX, SunOS, 8" floppies, 5.25" floppies, etc,etc) Though I started with a 5.25" single-sided single density floppy in 1978: 88 Kilobytes. I actually upgraded to the 8" floppies about 4 years later, but by then it was double-sided, double density. I thought all my Christmasses had come at once to jump from 88 K to 1200 K in the blink of a eye. I transferred a whole 5" floppy to an 8" floppy and I still had more than a Megabyte of space left! Wheeeee! Round about then the first IBM came out, and I remember we looked down our noses at that miserable little amount of floppy space it had (160K) and we considered it a toy! We didn't think that way only 3 or 4 years later when that "toy" completely wiped out our 8-bit world.
- asplake 2y ago
  8” after 5.25” would have been a downgrade I think? I was glad to see the back of former (the latter too of course, but a bit later)
  - simonblack 2y ago
    Nope. Upgrade. I explained how the 8" held far more data than the 5". The HD 5" 1.2 MB didn't appear till the late 80s, early 90s. The 8" 1.2 MB was around about ten years earlier. 8" floppy (IBM-3470 SSSD format was the standard format for CP/M software to be distributed on.)
- lanna 2y ago
  You got 5" and 8" mixed up
  - simonblack 2y ago
    Nope. CP/M software distribution standard floppy size was 8". (SSSD = IBM 3470 standard) I had gone from North Star DOS (5") floppy to CP/M (8").
bryanlarsen 2y ago
Which likely puts you in your 40's. That's not old, only in tech is that old.
- biofox 2y ago
  I'm in my 30s, and my first computer as a kid had a 5.25" FDD. Fondest media-memory of that era was CD-ROMs coming in caddies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caddy_%28hardware%29#/media/File:Cd_caddies_JPG.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caddy_%28hardware%29#/media/Fi...
pjmlp 2y ago
I have seen them, during high school visit to our national TV in Portugal during early 90's. Our national post still had punched tape communications infrastructure on those days as well.
- LargoLasskhyfv 2y ago
  Did it look like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bzehb_yeZtU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bzehb_yeZtU
zafka 2y ago
When I started at Siemens in Boca Raton, FL ( of course it was Broken Sound Blvd) There were a lot of older PBXs with 8" floppy drives. When they threw one out, they allowed me ( a co-op at the time) to take it home. I still have the floppy drive. I wish I had thought to get a few of the floppy disks for it.

i started on Unix/SunOS in 1990 then Linux in 1993 (i'm old) and even i have never even _seen_ a real 8" FD! i do recall using 5 1/4" FDs (though i can't remember what for).

simonblack 2y ago

Used 'em all. (UNIX, SunOS, 8" floppies, 5.25" floppies, etc,etc) Though I started with a 5.25" single-sided single density floppy in 1978: 88 Kilobytes. I actually upgraded to the 8" floppies about 4 years later, but by then it was double-sided, double density. I thought all my Christmasses had come at once to jump from 88 K to 1200 K in the blink of a eye. I transferred a whole 5" floppy to an 8" floppy and I still had more than a Megabyte of space left! Wheeeee! Round about then the first IBM came out, and I remember we looked down our noses at that miserable little amount of floppy space it had (160K) and we considered it a toy! We didn't think that way only 3 or 4 years later when that "toy" completely wiped out our 8-bit world.

asplake 2y ago
8” after 5.25” would have been a downgrade I think? I was glad to see the back of former (the latter too of course, but a bit later)
- simonblack 2y ago
  Nope. Upgrade. I explained how the 8" held far more data than the 5". The HD 5" 1.2 MB didn't appear till the late 80s, early 90s. The 8" 1.2 MB was around about ten years earlier. 8" floppy (IBM-3470 SSSD format was the standard format for CP/M software to be distributed on.)
lanna 2y ago
You got 5" and 8" mixed up
- simonblack 2y ago
  Nope. CP/M software distribution standard floppy size was 8". (SSSD = IBM 3470 standard) I had gone from North Star DOS (5") floppy to CP/M (8").

bryanlarsen 2y ago

Which likely puts you in your 40's. That's not old, only in tech is that old.

biofox 2y ago
I'm in my 30s, and my first computer as a kid had a 5.25" FDD. Fondest media-memory of that era was CD-ROMs coming in caddies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caddy_%28hardware%29#/media/File:Cd_caddies_JPG.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caddy_%28hardware%29#/media/Fi...

pjmlp 2y ago

I have seen them, during high school visit to our national TV in Portugal during early 90's. Our national post still had punched tape communications infrastructure on those days as well.

LargoLasskhyfv 2y ago
Did it look like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bzehb_yeZtU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bzehb_yeZtU

zafka 2y ago

When I started at Siemens in Boca Raton, FL ( of course it was Broken Sound Blvd) There were a lot of older PBXs with 8" floppy drives. When they threw one out, they allowed me ( a co-op at the time) to take it home. I still have the floppy drive. I wish I had thought to get a few of the floppy disks for it.