[Coco] 720k 3.5" floppies

[Joel Ewy]

Frank Swygert wrote:

> I know 720K 3.5" floppy (360K and 720K 5.25" also) are getting hard to

> find, but they are still available at reasonable prices. California

> Digital is one dealer I know that has them

> (http://www.cadigital.com/flopdriv.htm -- scroll down near the bottom

> of the page). 3.5"/720K are $29 (Sony 11W drives), Mitsubishi 501B

> 360K drives are $39, and TEC 501 180K drives are only $9. Only DECB

> users might want the single sided drives though, not much point in

> using them for OS-9. $40 for a 5.25" 360K drive might sound like a

> lot, but they aren't made any more! Finding good used ones is tough

> now too, not even the thrift stores usually have something that old,

> all computers I've seen there lately have at least 1.2M and 1.44M

> drives, and are usually Pentium class or better. Most of the 486 and

> lower machines are in the land fill or kept as collectibles.

> Interestingly I still see a good many 486 laptops around though.

>

Maybe I need to dig into my floppy drive stash and do some testing.  I
don't have many real 720K drives (1.44M drives work fine in their place
if you use 720K media -- which is also getting hard to find) but I have
quite a few 360K and 1.2M 5.25" drives, most of which should still be in
good working order.

Could one use a 1.2M drive (with HD media) as a 720K drive on a CoCo?


JCE