• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

1.44mb Floppy disks

Is it just me, or are the older floppies built better?

I remember when I was a kid, I was using 1.44MB floppies to play games off of, and could play a game off a disk for several years, without going bad. I just built a 486, and I grabbed a bunch of my really old disks from my closet, and many of them are readable. Then I grabbed some newer ones (disks only a couple of years old), and most of them are unreadable. Sector not found on file after file.
 
Its like any other media, the early stuff was better engineered because it was expensive (profitable) while toward the end it was too cheap to bother with expensive QC.

I think the old blue dye CDR I used to pay $8 each for in bulk when CDR were cutting edge and expensive are better then the stuff you get now for $15 on sale for 50 pcs.

Quite a bit of old commercial software on 3.5" HD disks I have still works fine, but then that was made on an very expensive duplication machine that probably checked to make sure the format was 100% and done on duplication grade media, not the run of the mill junk they sold to consumers formatted on a cheap sheetmetal enclosed floppy drive.

If anything 5.25" drives and disks seem to last forever, 3.5" not so much.
 
Nice find. I just ordered a box, we'll see how it goes.

No need to lament over the lack of DD disks though, Unknown_K - just tape over the hole on the 1.44MB HD floppy and you're set!
 
nathan said:
Nice find. I just ordered a box, we'll see how it goes.

No need to lament over the lack of DD disks though, Unknown_K - just tape over the hole on the 1.44MB HD floppy and you're set!
Click to expand...

That doesn't work very well over the long term. I did purchase a bulk lot of 500 DD many years ago when I got into Amigas, still have 300 or so left (should have snagged more they were cheap then).

I have the bad luck of running them over with my chair when they fall over and I don't notice (if you leave anything on the table my cats like to toss them around). Originals are in drawers or their original boxes, but disks I use for drivers or moving files between old machines tend to sit around.

P.S. Same seller had stock of 100 disks also if 200 were too many. Shipping isn't double for multiple orders either.
 
I have enough floppy disks to last a while, but new floppy drives have become scarce. So I bought a bulk set of ten new OEM on eBay, came out to $2.50 each. Now I'm set for a long time!
 
I just found out that I scored a bunch of 5.25" and 3.5" floppies on FreeCycle... The person I am getting them from was going to wipe them all but thankfully agreed to my request that they not wipe anything containing actual software. Needless to say, I'm more excited about what software I might find than the disks themselves!
 
nathan said:
I just found out that I scored a bunch of 5.25" and 3.5" floppies on FreeCycle... The person I am getting them from was going to wipe them all but thankfully agreed to my request that they not wipe anything containing actual software. Needless to say, I'm more excited about what software I might find than the disks themselves!
Click to expand...
Let us know what you find!
 
nathan said:
I just found out that I scored a bunch of 5.25" and 3.5" floppies on FreeCycle... The person I am getting them from was going to wipe them all but thankfully agreed to my request that they not wipe anything containing actual software. Needless to say, I'm more excited about what software I might find than the disks themselves!
Click to expand...

I don't like reusing old formatted and labled disks. When I get in a batch of used media I seperate the commercial disks (and unused ones if there are any) from the used stuff. When I get bored I look over the contents of the used ones, anything with bad sectors gets tossed.
 
carangil said:
Is it just me, or are the older floppies built better?
Click to expand...

When floppies started falling out of general use about 7-8 years ago the quality plummeted. And the poor quality only made people ditch them even faster. Same story with the drives as with the disks.

I've got hundreds of DD Amiga disks in the loft that still work perfectly. If you buy a box of ten today then chances are at least one of them is bad straight out of the packet.
 
I think its time for me to buy an old 5.25 inch drive and a pack of ancient 1.2M disks.

I have a "new" PC that only boots from HDD and floppy, and if the HDD goes out, I need a reliable boot method. I went through a few bad disks trying to get a minimal cd-enabled dos 6.22 boot floppy to boot all the way without screaming 'sector not found.'

The disk that finally did work: an older-than-dirt 3.5 inch disk. (This disk was hand labeled Visual Basic 1.0 (This backup was make like 15 years ago!))
 
Well picked up the FreeCycle floppy disks, and holy crap. You know those big boxes that copier paper comes in? Yeah, a full one of those...

Looks like lots of 1.44MB and 1.2MB, with some 360KB and 720KB in there as well. I haven't inventoried software yet but I did see DOS, Windows 3.0 and 3.1, Lotus 1-2-3, and some others. Seems like the guy was into technical trading; there is a lot of specialized financial software on there. The financial stuff isn't exactly all that useful to me but if any of it is true 'abandonware' (i.e. no legal owner), maybe Vetusware will take it.
 
Unknown_K said:
Its like any other media, the early stuff was better engineered because it was expensive (profitable) while toward the end it was too cheap to bother with expensive QC.

I think the old blue dye CDR I used to pay $8 each for in bulk when CDR were cutting edge and expensive are better then the stuff you get now for $15 on sale for 50 pcs.

Quite a bit of old commercial software on 3.5" HD disks I have still works fine, but then that was made on an very expensive duplication machine that probably checked to make sure the format was 100% and done on duplication grade media, not the run of the mill junk they sold to consumers formatted on a cheap sheetmetal enclosed floppy drive.

If anything 5.25" drives and disks seem to last forever, 3.5" not so much.
Click to expand...

the big reason that the 5.25" disks last longer is that the bits on the disk are not packed nearly as close together as 3.5" disks. less data storage capacity on larger physical disks means that it is not as prone to read errors as the material begins to degrade.
 
offensive_Jerk said:
i wonder where he got them.
His other items for sale are all weird things.
Click to expand...

Same place other people find them, the company stock room when nobody is looking! ;)

I bet quite a few companies have a stash of old floppy disks never used from when they purchased them in bulk in the 90's and burried them under other junk.
 
The boxes just showed up, didn't know Fedex delivered on Saturday. Anybody get a partial refund on shipping like I did (only a couple dollars)?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top