[H-GEN] Floppies

[Frank Brand]

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Some salient points,


1. When you got disks years ago they were $40 a box ...now they are $5 a
box.

2. I doubt that really there were grades of floppies then, maybe some good
marketing or batch testing procedures. In all of computerdom the test
procedures have been eliminated...you are the testing procedure so there are
more faulty components seen - that includesHDD's, motherboards etc.

3. Only a limited number of companies make the magnetic media but hundreds
of companies assemble disks. It is unlikely that the media will vary all
that much and it usually comes from a reasonable source.

4. I can remember some pretty shitty disks with software on them...even MS
disks sometimes were faulty.

5. HOW OLD IS YOUR FLOPPY DRIVE? In a box or two of reasonable disks I might
get one or two faulties but if you consistently get formating failures look
towards you drive maybe? Are you reformatting old floppies ?... that will
get you a lot more failures...if you are doing important stuff...like making
a boot disk always use a new floppy. If you buy a new box of floppies and
consistently get more that one or two formating problems I doubt if the disk
is your problem. I have had problems with most of the common brands at some
time so I am not sure I would care to offer a brand suggestion.

Frank Brand

>             Can anyone point me to a supplier of quality
>floppies? I find that whenever I format a floppy under
>OpenBSD it gives a few errors, never enough to make them
>unusable but it leaves a bad feeling.
>             I seem to remember that when software came on
>floppies there were two types, one for general use and a
>better type that the software was put on. Are these still
>available and can the public get them?



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