On Thu, Sep 1, 2022 at 4:10 AM Liam Proven via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
> Someone on Fesse Bouc just found a sealed box of SS/SD 8" floppies in > their garage. > > Someone suggested punching a notch in them and using both sides. > > Was that even possible on 8" disks? > On 5.25" diskettes punching a notch to enable use of the second side worked due to 2 factors: First, the index hole was commonly unused on 5.25" systems so it didn't matter that the index hole was in the wrong place when the diskette was flipped over. Second, on 5.25" diskettes the notch is a write-enable notch, and the absence of a notch (or a sticker covering it) was taken to mean that the diskette was write-protected. So the notch was required to make use of the other side unless you defeated the write protect sensor some other way. Typical 8" systems differed in that the index hole was commonly used, meaning that you needed to punch holes in the front and back of the jacket to allow the index sensor to work properly (and you had to do this without accidentally punching any extra holes in the media inside the jacket). But you didn't need to punch a 'write enable' notch to make use of the second side because on an 8" diskette the presence of a notch indicates the diskette is write-protected. If you want to write on an 8" diskette with a notch you need to cover the notch with a sticker. This is exactly the opposite of how the notch works on 5.25" diskettes. -ken
