h a l f b a k e r y"It would work, if you can find alternatives to each of the steps involved in this process."
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If Zip/Jaz/etc. magnetic media can store hundreds of megabytes or even gigabytes of data on an exposed 3 1/2" platter, why not make the platters 5 1/4"?
The flexible jacket design used on old-fashioned 5 1/4" floppies could be adopted, the reduction in thickness more than making up for the increased
surface area.
(??) 128MB so small you could swallow it (please don't try)
http://www.istick.biz Caution slow site. 1.3MB Win98 driver took > 2 hrs over broadband; link fixed now [FloridaManatee, Oct 04 2004]
(?) Imation SuperDisks
http://www.imation.....jhtml?Id=IM_FAM122 120M in the exact same format as a 3 1/2" floppy. [krelnik, Oct 04 2004]
[link]
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I'd make it rigid -- I don't know how many times I've lost a C64 disk due to a crease. |
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Crossaint for the useful juxtaposition of old and new technology. |
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Could I use a hole punch to knock out a corner so I could flip it over and use the other side? |
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While the concept is nostalgic, I really, really don't like the idea of flexible media in a flexible jacket. In order to read/write data at a very high density, the head must be exceedingly close and warping of the media would not be helpful. |
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The way to go is optical for cheap, fixed storage, email for distance and chips for face to face file exchange. |
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In fact, I have an adapter for a Smart flash disk into a floppy drive. At the time when it came out, I was limited to a 64MB flash, but hey, that's over 44x the capacity of a regular floppy. The problem was that it needed a driver to run under Win 98. |
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Today, I have a 43x18x2.5mm flash chip that stores 128MB fits and runs as a removable drive plugged directly into a USB without adapter or driver. It's about a gazillion times faster than FDD too. For higher capacity transfers I have an old laptop HDD run through a $8 USB case. My latest computer has a completely virgin FDD (HDD was preloaded with WinXP). |
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With today's technology why on earth would anyone want a FDD, let alone a 5.25" drive.... |
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...except to play emulated Apple II games of course! |
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Somewhat baked. A few years ago a company came out with 120 Megabyte disks that used the exact same form factor as 3 1/2" floppy disks, and would also read those as well. A couple of the PC vendors including at least one major one (Compaq? I don't recall) were shipping these drives for a time. See link. |
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I guess demand for these was not great (probably due to all the alternative solutions mentioned by others here) because if you follow any link on that page you see this: "We have discontinued the sale of our Imation SuperDisk 120MB drives. However, you can still receive product support for SuperDisk 120MB diskettes and Imation SuperDisk drives." |
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[Florida]: Please fix the link. It's ker-busted. |
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I store lots of files on CD, probably will get a DVD burner for even more storage. |
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I think a Laserdisc, redesigned to store data with the same density as a DVD, would make an impressive storage device, especially in RW form. |
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Bring back the large floppy? Well, aren't CDs about the same size, with fewer limitations? I use an old floppy storage box to hold my data CDs... |
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