Something for the oldies, something newer...

[Scott Baret]

I had two conquests late this afternoon, both of which I feel are worth sharing!

First, for something I can use with my old 68Ks. I got two brand new shrinkwrapped boxes of floppies--one Verbatim high density ten pack and one 3M double density (800K) ten pack. Both are formatted for Mac.

Next, for something a little bit newer: A Summer 2000 iMac DV at 400MHz (although it could also be a base model iMac from early 2001; the serial number is right on the edges of the two models' production spans and places the manufacture in February 2001) in indigo, complete with a Pro Keyboard and Pro Mouse! This little guy has 512MB RAM, a 20GB hard drive, and a brand new battery. While I am admittedly going to use it as an OS 9 machine (with AppleWorks 5, iMovie 2, and possibly Word 5.1 as well as some education programs) I do have a copy of Jaguar sitting around collecting dust (never got around to installing it on any machine I own) that I just might have to use. The case has a few minor scuffs but nothing too noticeable. The only thing it is missing is the power cord, but that's no problem, as I have a whole box of them sitting around.

Those of you who have been keeping score at home probably are aware that I am indeed downsizing, but after realizing that my newest desktop I had planned to keep was a Color Classic (I gave my iMac G4 to my mother) I decided I needed something else in there to run newer software and also to use as an extra machine for video in case I was ever without my MacBook. The iMac booted up fine and will make a great addition to my little group of Macs.

 

[aftermac]

Congrats! New 800k floppies are hard to come by these days.

 

[Quadraman]

Congrats! New 800k floppies are hard to come by these days.

Yeah, and trying to format HD floppies as lower density floppies is almost always unreliable at best.

 

[Scott Baret]

I have long advised against formatting 1.4MB disks as 800K. I read they were unreliable in just about every book on Macs and wanted to see for myself.

Way back in 1995, I covered the second hole of a 1.4MB disk with a piece of tape and formatted it as an 800K disk. The disk worked fine for a few days but became extremely error-prone within a week.

Since then, I have always made it a point to purchase 800K disks whenever I need to use the lower capacity (typically only if I'm dealing with 800K drive Macs--still fairly common in 1995 when people were using Pluses/SEs/IIs more frequently). Also, I've stocked up on 800Ks every time I've seen them since Wal Mart quit carrying them several years ago.

A good place to check is a Goodwill ComputerWorks store. I've purchased many 800K disks, brand new in shrinkwrapped boxes, at the Pittsburgh location (on various occasions--even though I do tend to buy all of them whenever I'm by the store).