Date   : Mon, 19 Apr 2010 22:47:06 +0100
From   : tim.fardell@... (Tim Fardell)
Subject: Re-using floppies

Jules Richardson wrote:
> Mike Tomlinson wrote:
>> I still have the punch used to cut out the additional write-protect
>> notch on the opposite side to the original.  It's quite well made, in
>> metal painted blue.  Does anyone want it for their collection before I
>> bin it?
> 
> Gah, memories of drilling holes using a pair of scissors to turn a DD 3.5" 
> disk into a HD one :-)

I didn't bother with that. I just bent the switch out of the way in 
the disk drive, so it assumed all disks were HD :-)

Also, the Compaq Deskpro 386/20e (the first IBM PC clone I ever used) 
didn't use the sensing hole at all and would format any disk to either 
1.44M or 720k. The activity LED glowed red for DD and green for HD, 
and on the first access after inserting a new disk you could see it 
"hunting" while working out whether it was formatted as HD or DD.
I think I kept one of those disk drives somewhere. They seem pretty 
unique.