RFC: Floppy reader/writer project (recovering UniPlus Unix for the Lisa)

[Ray Arachelian]

Chuck Guzis wrote:
> Temperature and its buddy, humidity have a lot to do with the 
> readability of diskettes.  Too much humidity (as in a cold diskette 
> in a warm room generating condensation) will cause the cookie to drag 
> in its jacket, for example.
>
> I try to allow diskettes to take some time to acclimate (for 2 or 3 
> days) in a low humidity (20 percent RH) environment at 20C.  I don't 
> know if an extremely dry environment would be any better.
>   
I do keep the AC on in my computer room 24/7, although in winter, since 
it's so cold the condenser almost never kicks in.
So I suppose it was at most 60'F.  Outside was 30-something so the disks 
were about 40'F at most.

Somehow, in this case, I no longer suppose the temperature was 
involved.  Before sending out the disks, I re-read them again, and every 
single one read just fine.  I expect it was a case of the owner's drive 
being dirty/misaligned.

> Then, there's some media that's just plain garbage--it was terrible 
> when it was new and is no better now (e.g.  Wabash, Control Data, 
> Elephant, etc.).
>   


Wow, I remember Elephant. :-)  They were one of the first disks I 
bought, something insane like $2 @ for 5.25" SS/DS...  they were pretty 
awful when new, I'm not sure I'd put'em in a drive after all these years.