🚀 go-pugleaf

From article <93012.37231.LJ01066@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM>, by LJ01066@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM:
> 
>>In article <1992Dec30.104013.28558@Princeton.EDU>,
>>bathurst@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Bruce Bathurst) writes:
>>|>HD diskettes are coated,
>>|>like DD, but then polished more to reduce surface bumps that would
>>|>produce magnetic irregularities.  This thins the coating.  The lower
>>|>density drive is designed to penetrate a thick coating with
>>|>magnetism;
>>|>when it does this to the thin coating, the magntic domains grow
>>|>sideways rather than downward and may interfere with other tracks.
>>|>
> 
>>From this and other things said, can I use (cheaper) 3 1/2 DD disks in my HD
>>drive without problems?   Assuming I ADD THE SECOND HOLE?
> 
> Rebuttle: Although the below statement is somewhat correct, it should be
> pointed out that dd and hd disk median is not the same.  The drive head
> current used to write to the disk depends on what disk the computer thinks
> it's writing to. Although you can convert dd to hd via below method and
> you may not ever expierence problems, for a master copy of some data you
> risk loosing it over time.  Hdensity head current is lower than dd and the
> dd median is designed for a higher current. Despite that some people feel
> disk makers are using the same disk but charging us more for hd is not
> true. Also they really don't check the unused side of a dd disk.
                                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I must disagree with you about this last statement.  A 3 1/2" DD disk (which
the original writer was referring to) uses BOTH sides of the disk, not one
side.  Now, in the "old" days (Atari 8-bit, C-64, TRS-80) the diskettes were
single or double sided, and you could punch out your single-sided 5 1/4" and
use both sides.  You may have a point, perhaps the manufacturers of THOSE
diskettes didn't check BOTH sides of a single-sided disk, but 720K DD 3 1/2"
certainly are tested on both sides (because the USE both sides)!

-Jason