Date   : Sun, 20 Mar 1988 07:53:26 GMT
From   : osu-cis!n8emr!oink!jep@TUT.CIS.OHIO-STATE.EDU (James E. Prior)
Subject: 8" floppy drive probles

In article <18700014@clio> berger@clio.las.uiuc.edu writes:
>There are a lot of fallacies there.  8" disks are still readily available,
>and commonly used in commercial word processors.  

It has been my understanding that there isn't anyone making 8" drives
anymore.  When Qume quit making 8" drives a year or two ago, I remember
comments that they were the last manufacturer.

8" drives *are* available, but not necessarily readily.  There are
surplus dealers who have them ready for a signficant price.  If you
want it cheap, you have to wait for the right opertunity at a flea
market, or a friend or company unloading their old stuff.

>Contrary to your remarks
>about reliability, 8" disks are notoriously more reliable than their
>5.25" counterparts.  They typically contain more data, and transfer
>faster, than 5.25" drives of comparable density and data capacity.

Amen.

>It would not be feasible to replace the 8" drives on my NEC APC with
>5.25" drives.  I couldn't tolerate the reduced capacity and slowdown.

Amen.

>My solution was to add 8" drives to my XT clone.  With those, and
>Uniform, I can accomodate a lot of different 8" formats.

He's not joking!  A friend of mine did this also!  He can put 1.2M
on his 8" MS-DOS disks, and also read many various CP/M formats into
his XT!  It's very handy.  BTW, genuine IBM floppy controllers have a
DC-37 connector for external drives.  

>Incidentally, I'd love to know where I can get new 8" DSDD disk
>drives for $ 50.  That's a real bargain.

The Trenton Computer Festival and Dayton Hamvention are your best prospects.
Last year a BIG stack of 8" drives went for $5 each.

Also look in Computer Shopper.

-- 
Jim Prior    {ihnp4|osu-cis}!n8emr!oink!jep    jep@oink.UUCP

Pointers are my friend.