I once had a brief discussion with Gary Kildall, in which I pleaded with
him to create a "secondary" standard for 5.25".
He replied, "THE CP/M standard is Single Sided Single Density."
He felt that people, disunirregardless of which hardware they were using
SHOULD be able to transfer back and forth with 8" SSSD
So, we ended up with thousands of 5.25" formats.
On Tue, 8 Oct 2024, ben via cctalk wrote:
That is because the 5.25 was 'no standard' format, because the selling of a
cheap media device. 35 tracks, single density to who knows what, as
every other year a new standard and media.
I think the real reason Kildall stuck with that standard,was sectors were
128 bytes, and things had to shoehorn into what memory you had.
CPM I think was only 2K of ram for the OS,and 256 bytes of system RAM.
Also, he believed in a single standard, and the user had an obligation to
be able to get to and from the standard.
If he added "secondary" standards, as I was suggesting for 5.25", there
would be a never ending proliferation.
Need a standard for double sided.
Need a standard for double density.
Need a standard for 40 tracks.
Need a standard for 80 tracks.
Need a standard for 3"
Need a standard for 3.25".
Need a standard for 3.5"
. . .
By refusing to create a "secondary" standard, he avoided dilution of
the standard, and he stood up for his belief that everybody should at
least be able to comply with THE standard.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com
