Diskette

Floppy Disks / Diskette

a disc to sace and load data to/from, no more in daily use today.

the bigger ones were floppy (thats, were the name came from) discs. the 3.5" format was still diskette format but no more sloppy / floppy..

basic info

• Invented 1969 =8 Inches = 8" by Alan Shugart who also introduced the Bus which was used for Floppy Disc drives.
• Formats 8", 5 1/4", 3.5"
• Allowed max. 1.6 MByte on 3.5, usually 1.44 MB on HD (high density) 3.5" Diskettes and 720 KByte on Normal Disks (double density, DD).
• large formats: ca.160 KB on 5 1/4" (up to 1.2 MB) and 180 KB on 8" (up to 1 MB).
• floppy discs (exept 3.5" which isn't "floppy") can be used bo oth sides, but be careful on this.
• 3.5" got a write protect "switch", while the big ones had stickers, the image shows no sticker (right upper side), so it isn't write protected, and this one is formatted one sided since there is no second write protection hole on the left side but possible.

formats

DOS format was the most common, even for synthesizers but most manufacturers got their own way of structure (proprietary), also Mac can read PC formatted discs (was introduced around OS 7.5 times called PC exchange) - to read Atari ST discs its best to format them on the PC or Mac and let the ST write the disc and THEN read it back from the PC/Mac (todays Macs need USB Disc drives since Macs have no Diskette drives anymore for a much longer time compared to PCs).