🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <313@neoucom.UUCP>, wtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew) wrote:
>> The main thing is to worry about making sure that you buy 2S2D
>> diskettes, as the 1S2D may eventually shed oxide (and your data)
>> off the unpolished side.
and then in article <278@puff.wisc.edu> beilke@puff.wisc.edu (Matt Beilke)
wrote:
>  This is also VERY important.  Don't you realize that those single
>sided disks are single sided for a reason?  One side did not pass the
>quality test!  So if you are willing to risk your data and/or programs
>to a defective disk, well, all I can say is, tough luck if you lose it.

Sorry, but you're both wrong.
All manufacturers of 3.5" microfloppies that I know of polish both
sides of the disk, first of all.  Oxide ain't going to come off.

On the point that Matt makes: most single-sided floppies either aren't
tested at all on the second side, or test fine on both.  It is rare to
find a disk sold as single-sided that has medium problems on the second
side.  (I have also heard that some "single-sided" disks have tested OK
on both sides, but are sold as SS because of market conditions...I don't know
whether this is true.)

What I do know is that I use a fairly large number of these disks, and
I never buy disks labeled as DS if I can help it (because of the price 
difference).  I have noted no higher a rate of failure than on identical 
disks I use as SS.

(I don't know the mechanics of the Amiga drives, but the Mac's SS drive
has a pressure pad where the second head is on the DS drive.  This pressure
pad can wipe gunk onto the second side of a disk, making it a bad idea
to make a DS disk out of one that you've already used in a SS drive
(consider the consequences of the second drive head plowing into said
gunk).  This topic was discussed on BIX's Mac forum a while ago, and I
believe the salient parts of the discussion were reprinted in the Sept.
'86 issue of Byte.  The conclusion was that the "SS/DS" labels were
mostly meaningless in judging disk quality/suitability for DS use.)

***Wistful Digression***
Although I am not an Amiga owner, I read this newsgroup because I do use
a computer (the Mac) whose operating environment has many similarities
to that of the Amiga.  But I am disheartened by the attitude shown here
whenever the Mac is mentioned.  ("Hostility" is not too strong a word to
use for it.)  I have seen the Mac lumped in with the IBM PC, presumably
simply on the grounds that both machines are used by more businesspeople
than use the Amiga. I have seen Amiga/Mac wars in which the debate was
seemingly limited to assertions such as:
	"All Mac owners are yuppies!"
	"Macs are useless because they don't do *true* multitasking!"
and others which amount to "Yer machine's a wimp!"  I've seen virtually 
no one willing to accept the idea that both machines have good qualities,
and as a consequence I've seen no discussion at all of *the good things
they have in common*: the concept of a highly intuitive, visually-oriented
user interface, the experimentation with input devices other than 
typewriter keyboards, bit-mapped screens, and standardized information
exchange between programs.

Wouldn't talking about those things be more interesting than endless
pointless putdowns?
-- 
jeanne a. e. devoto           |    "The mind is an infinite resource...but
...!tektronix!reed!jeanne     |     only if you don't squander it."
USsnail: 5353 SE 28th #38     |     
         Portland, OR 97202   |          James Hogan, "Voyage From Yesteryear"