8 inch disk drive

Iltanen · Post by **Iltanen** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 9:18 am

One type of 12-inch floppy, from the VCF in 2005:

Those things are quite hard to find, eh?

d0c · Post by **d0c** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 11:31 am

if you use these strange apple disks on your c64 floppy drive you can read the data backward and some satanic message will appear on the screen......

pitcalco · Post by **pitcalco** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 12:06 pm

Hmm...12" to 8" to 5.25 " and now 3.5"...

I wonder what Freud would have said about such dwindling sizes .

eslapion · Post by **eslapion** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 6:00 pm

pitcalco wrote:Hmm...12" to 8" to 5.25 " and now 3.5"...

I wonder what Freud would have said about such dwindling sizes .

Probably that nerds like to manipulate large things.

As computer users were getting less and less nerdy, data storage disks have become smaller and smaller until they reached the ultra convenient format of 80mm which is probably the smallest form a standard non-nerd person would like to manipulate.

As the trend towards smaller form factors caught up, a very special kind of computer users began to emerge; girls. Girls are attracted to small nice looking things and as a result, companies have begun marketing the ever smaller Micro SD card which carries about the same amount of data as a mini DVD-DL but is less than one tenth the volume.

The Micro SD card is a gigantic leap in marketing strategies because its small size makes it easier to loose than any other digital storage medium.

gklinger · Post by **gklinger** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 7:17 pm

eslapion wrote:The Micro SD card is a gigantic leap in marketing strategies because its small size makes it easier to loose than any other digital storage medium.

Ha! The latest innovation in planned obsolescence.

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 3:24 am

pitcalco wrote:Hmm...12" to 8" to 5.25 " and now 3.5"...

If we limit our thinking to magnetic floppy disks, "now" equals 0" because those have disappeared from the market. I don't know what Freud would think, that we all became eunuchs?

Actually for a short while there were 3", 3.25" and very briefly 4" disks too. The latter was some kind of format IBM were planning to introduce, but after all decided to use 3.5" disks like most of the other industry was. Given IBM's influence on the PC market and others, I wonder if having their own floppy disks would have made the 3.5" disks a novelty or if two formats could have co-existed to a bigger extent than e.g. 3" disks did.

pitcalco · Post by **pitcalco** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 3:53 am

I don't know about eunuchs, but I wonder if there is a correlation between the decrease in disk size (yes, that is DISK size) and the increase in the number of women using computers.

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 7:49 am

carlsson wrote:
pitcalco wrote:Hmm...12" to 8" to 5.25 " and now 3.5"...
If we limit our thinking to magnetic floppy disks, "now" equals 0" because those have disappeared from the market. I don't know what Freud would think, that we all became eunuchs?

Actually for a short while there were 3", 3.25" and very briefly 4" disks too.

Don't forget about Quickdisks!

Perhaps that's what you meant by 3" disks.

PaulQ · Post by **PaulQ** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 6:43 pm

eslapion wrote: The Micro SD card is a gigantic leap in marketing strategies because its small size makes it easier to loose than any other digital storage medium.

Here's my 2GB MicroSD card put into perspective:

They are available in 8GB capacities at this size. That is nearly the capacity of a dual layer DVD, or almost the capacity of two regular DVD's.

I tend to have a more positive opinion of these. When they become obsolete or fail, they'll take up extremely little space in a landfill, which I think is very important to consider. You can fit a lot of these inside a CD or DVD case.

yoyodyne · Post by **yoyodyne** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 8:07 pm

DigitalQuirk wrote:When they become obsolete or fail, they'll take up extremely little space in a landfill, which I think is very important to consider.

Thats very true, and yes, very important. However, they are very
easy to loose track of when they are that small.

"Nobody move! I dropped the movie on the carpet!"

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 9:45 pm

Or, have you seen the family photo album? I had about 10,000 photos on there and the kid's birthday videos....

Oh no, you vacuumed the floor yesterday!

eslapion · Post by **eslapion** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 4:20 pm

DigitalQuirk wrote:When they become obsolete or fail, they'll take up extremely little space in a landfill, which I think is very important to consider. You can fit a lot of these inside a CD or DVD case.

AFAIK, CDs and DVDs are made of arcrylic or polycarbonate which is 100% recyclable. SD cards contains a silicium chip, copper traces and gold which is extrmely difficult to separate and recycle.

PaulQ · Post by **PaulQ** » Sat Oct 25, 2008 9:04 am

CD's and DVD's are not easily recyclable. "CDs and DVDs are typically manufactured by combining various mined metals (aluminum, gold, silver and nickel) with petroleum-derived plastics, lacquers and dyes." "Given what complicated beasts CDs and DVDs are -- products with thin layers of different materials mixed together are nearly impossible to recycle"

Source: http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmen ... ing-460708

Of course, there are places that will recycle compact discs, separating the recyclable components; however, there is an environmental impact associated with this process.

From a post-consumer waste standpoint, MicroSD cards are much more environmentally friendly. For starters, unlike conventional compact discs and DVD's, they are reusable. How many AOL CD's ended up in landfills? If these AOL CD's were released as MicroSD cards, they'd at least get re-used. That's a big factor. This means that these will end up in a landfill only when they've ceased to function. A fair comparison would be floppy disks; while CD's and DVD's have made headlines for their environmental impact, we rarely see pictures of floppy disks spilling out of landfills. Then there's the fact that they're so insignificantly small, each one represents very little in actual recoverable and disposable resources. At the end of their life, most will probably get lost before they ever find their way to a landfill, and will probably join the dust bunnies in the unseen corners of our lives.

What I find them perfect for is for storing music. If I loose one, it's not that big of a deal. I would always have a backup of the contents on my computer.

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Sat Oct 25, 2008 10:16 am

One consideration: how vulnerable to static shocks and moisture are these mini-SD cards?

A CD or a DVD won't be harmed by static or moisture, usually.

PaulQ · Post by **PaulQ** » Sat Oct 25, 2008 11:44 am

ral-clan wrote:One consideration: how vulnerable to static shocks and moisture are these mini-SD cards?

A CD or a DVD won't be harmed by static or moisture, usually.

Interesting you should bring that up. This is my jumpdrive:

For all intents and purposes, it's a big microSD card. It uses the same technology, except it has an LED light and a USB connector. A couple of weeks ago, I forgot about it in the pocket of my pants. My wife did the laundry, and this drive went through the wash. It came out dripping wet. I dried it off, plugged it in, and it still worked fine. It even retained all of the data I had stored on it.

The trouble with recordable disks is that the dye can fade in as little as two years. Exposure to heat and/or bright light can also damage the data.

Actually, you'll probably want to keep CD-R's away from water:

http://www.mscience.com/faq53.html

Liquid water must always be avoided since polycarbonate will absorb water molecules. Oil from fingerprints or organic vapors in the environment can also attack either surface, resulting in long term degradation. Delamination can occur when the critical metallized layer separates from the CD-ROM polycarbonate substrate or from the CD-R dye layer.