Anyone else remember being able to double your disk space with a hole punch?

[BrunoPuntzJones]

Trying to finish moving all media (dvds, cds, vhs, etc.) to hard drives. Lots of disk space needed. And mixing pata and sata drives with some of them just hanging outside of the case due to lack of drive bays (guess that's what I get for buying 200GB drives instead of 1TB).

Got me to thinking in the way back when machine. Double sided disks were the norm. Then the new fangled high density disks come out. Instead of the high prices of HD disks, you could take the low density ones and a square hole punch and double your capacity

 

[edro]

No, but I remember getting Quick Books Pro trial, for free.
It was ~10 floppies that could be formatted and used if you punched out the corners.

 

[spidey07]

Sure I remember.

Also remember single density disks.

 

[nakedfrog]

I'm pretty sure I still have a few of those around
I actually used the awl tool on my Swiss Army knife to make the hole when nothing else was handy.

 

[DrPizza]

I couldn't figure out what the heck you were talking about. Then I realized, "Ohhhh! He used a square hole punch - I never thought of that. I carefully used a pair of very sharp scissors.

 

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
I couldn't figure out what the heck you were talking about. Then I realized, "Ohhhh! He used a square hole punch - I never thought of that. I carefully used a pair of very sharp scissors.

Round holes worked too.

 

[DnetMHZ]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
I couldn't figure out what the heck you were talking about. Then I realized, "Ohhhh! He used a square hole punch - I never thought of that. I carefully used a pair of very sharp scissors.

Yes, I used the low tech scissor method also.

 

[ajskydiver]

I did that all the time...never had enough disks with the C-64. Those were the days...

 

[cherrytwist]

You guys realize that was stealing, right? Riiiiiiight?

 

[hanoverphist]

Originally posted by: spidey07
Sure I remember.

Also remember single density disks.

w3rd. i remember... even tho ive tried and tried to forget

 

[RaiderJ]

That must have been a couple years before my time. Floppy disks were the norm when I started working with computers, but they were all 1.44MB by that time.

What did the hole do? Just allow you to format the disks? The media itself wasn't different between low and high density?

 

[SoulAssassin]

Ahhhh....I remember when Doublespace came out with DOS 6.0 too. That was fun until it crashed.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: RaiderJ
That must have been a couple years before my time. Floppy disks were the norm when I started working with computers, but they were all 1.44MB by that time.

What did the hole do? Just allow you to format the disks? The media itself wasn't different between low and high density?

There was a peg inside the disk drive to tell the drive there is a double or high density disk. It was on the other side from the write protect tab.

 

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: RaiderJ
That must have been a couple years before my time. Floppy disks were the norm when I started working with computers, but they were all 1.44MB by that time.

What did the hole do? Just allow you to format the disks? The media itself wasn't different between low and high density?

The hole was a mechanical thing, if it was present, the system read the disk as 1.44MB. I imagine the data integrity was iffy, but I never had any problems.

 

[wnangle]

I bought a Radio Shack Model II business computer that had one 8 inch disk, SSDD (Single Side Double density). The 64K computer cost around $4000. By the time I added a word processor (Scriptsit), and Visicalc and a daisy chain printer, I had over $7000 in this unit. In order to get more out of the disks, I would punch them, with a special $26 disk puncher that allowed me to use the SSDD disks as DSDD (double sided double density) disks.

 

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: SoulAssassin
Ahhhh....I remember when Doublespace came out with DOS 6.0 too. That was fun until it crashed.

The best thing about DOS 6 was the boot menu! No more boot disks for games!
Although I did have a pretty nice config before it, with all my drivers loaded I had 604k free. I had to use a different mouse driver, can't even remember where I got that one from.

 

[ajskydiver]

I thought the 5.25" disks were 1.2 MB and the 3.5" disks were 1.44 MB...

 

[SKORPI0]

I remember using 8" floppy disk at work (late 70's).

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: Aj_UF
I thought the 5.25" disks were 1.2 MB and the 3.5" disks were 1.44 MB...

Only if you punched holes in them!

 

[KK]

yep, remember using a hole punch and taping over the hole when we wanted to write protect a disk.

 

[torpid]

Don't remind me of floppy disks. I still have nightmares once in a while relating to my floppy disk copies of mobius getting corrupted when I was in the air realm, thereby making the game corrupt. Had to wait months for a replacement. By that time, it was a big letdown because that dude with a beard was way too easy to defeat in battle for the amount of heartache I had to go through just to GET to that stupid fire level.

The stupid minstrel can suck it with his constant corruptedness.

 

[TallBill]

Haha, doublespace. What a great program

 

[GoPackGo]

Originally posted by: Aj_UF
I thought the 5.25" disks were 1.2 MB and the 3.5" disks were 1.44 MB...

That is correct....

I always wondered why the 2.88 MB 3.5" never took off.

 

[GoPackGo]

Originally posted by: cherrytwist
You guys realize that was stealing, right? Riiiiiiight?

:roll:

 

[0roo0roo]

i think even lopping off the whole corner worked wire cutter ftw