Re: Re: Thin Client Pc To Run
By: poindexter FORTRAN to MIKE POWELL on Thu Jan 15 2026 08:15 am

Seconded - I found an old floppy with my registered versions of Qedit, Timed and Global War, and copied them from the 3.5" (remember when they were called "microfloppies"?) to my hard drive.

I don't recall hearing anyone call them "microfloppies". But it seems there is some confusion about their name, especially today as most people haven't used them in a while - I've seen some posts online where people try to say the 3.5" discs weren't floppy disks because they were hard/rigid.. I think those people might be people too young to have used them though.

Nightfox

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Re: Re: Thin Client Pc To Run
By: Bf2k+ to poindexter FORTRAN on Thu Jan 15 2026 05:41 pm

a lot of sector re-reads, but I was able to get most everything
copied. Thankfully, the only sectors that failed contained one of
the text files and I was able to recover most of it.

Funny thing... my 5.25" disks are MUCH more reliable than the 3.5"
ones.

i think that's a universal truth. i never had a bad 5.25 disk. i've had
many 3.5's.

i think they make older stuff more sturdy and reliable and then they work on making it as cheap as possible and still be functional.
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On 15 Jan 2026, Nightfox said the following...

Re: Re: Thin Client Pc To Run
By: poindexter FORTRAN to MIKE POWELL on Thu Jan 15 2026 08:15 am

Seconded - I found an old floppy with my registered versions of Qedit Timed and Global War, and copied them from the 3.5" (remember when th were called "microfloppies"?) to my hard drive.

I don't recall hearing anyone call them "microfloppies". But it seems there is some confusion about their name, especially today as most
people haven't used them in a while - I've seen some posts online where people try to say the 3.5" discs weren't floppy disks because they were hard/rigid.. I think those people might be people too young to have
used them though.

http://floppy.museum/35inch.htm

it'd be interesting if it were possible to get logs from that Microfloppy Industry Committee .. see if they debated ditching the word "floppy" entirely. maybe they though computers were already confusing enough for people and didn't want to add even more lingo. (or confuse hard disks with "regular disks" or something)

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On 15 Jan 2026, Bf2k+ said the following...

Funny thing... my 5.25" disks are MUCH more reliable than the 3.5" ones.

this isn't quite fair. the companies manufacturing them were in their absolute peak and nearly every disk was perfect in every way. early production 3.5" disks were very similar. 3.5" was allowed to both degrade in quality and prestige over time.. there wasn't incentive to make the same quality and they started including junk like plastic shudders

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Re: Re: Thin Client Pc To Run
By: Rob Mccart to FUSION on Sun Jan 18 2026 09:20 am

The data density was much higher on 3.5" disks which probably makes them more likely to be a weaker copy more prone to fail. The 5.25 disks were a lot bigger yet held less data so writing to them was slower and each bit was also more spread out making them more stable...

Interesting.. I'd think it would be possible to make higher-density floppy disks reliable. That seems to be the case with hard drives - There are hard drives these days that are terabytes in capacity that are reliable.

Nightfox

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Re: Re: Thin Client Pc To Run
By: Nightfox to Rob Mccart on Sun Jan 18 2026 12:52:35

The data density was much higher on 3.5" disks which probably makes
them more likely to be a weaker copy more prone to fail.

Not in my experience. Sure you had bad disks from time to time, but that's to be expected. In fact, the bulk of my 3.5" disks were no-name bundles I bought at computer stores; their failure rate wasn't any worse than name-brand versions.

The technology to make 3.5" disks had improved over 5.25" disks. Stepper moters had more finer control, enabling them to create more tracks, along with data compression techniques.

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Re: Re: Thin Client Pc To Run
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Denn on Mon Jan 19 2026 10:12 am

Limited Capacity & Speed: They held very little data (typically
1.44MB) and were incredibly slow for both reading and writing compared
to hard drives or newer media.

Data Corruption:
Dust & Debris: Openings allowed dust, dirt, and even mold/fungi to
enter, damaging the delicate magnetic surface and contaminating drive
heads.

I think the two complement each other - low capacity means less data lost when the floppy drive inevitably fails. You didn't depend on them; I used to use the diskcopy command a lot to create backups of my traveling disk.

When ever I would buy a program on a floppy, 1st thing i did was make a copy and use the copy only.
Still have my original Clarion database developer floppies, and several games.

Denn

... A toe is a device for finding furniture in the dark.

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Re: Re: Thin Client Pc To Run
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Rob Mccart on Thu Jan 22 2026 11:30:29

The excitement turned sour when the investor said "I said THUMB DRIVE!
That's a THUMB!"

He was just being cuticle.

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