[codazoda]

That reminded me of a couple “hacks” we did back then…

1. Cover the write protect notch on a 5 1/4” floppy with a sticker to enable writing.

2. Melt an extra hole in a 3.5” floppy with a cheap soldering iron to double its capacity to the 1.44MB that later became the standard.

[andrewshadura]

In 5¼" disks, the uncovered notch meant R/W while stickers were used to prevent writing.

[amenghra]

I think we used to punch holes in 5¼ floppies to enable writing to their backside?

[medmunds]

Yep. An ordinary round hole punch worked, but you could also get a purpose built punch that made a nice rectangular notch, had a guide to get the position just right, and had more leverage making it easier to punch through the thick jacket. "Dual sided" floppies (with two factory cut notches) cost enough extra that the tool paid for itself pretty quickly, IIRC.

Of course, the floppy manufacturers warned that the cheaper single sided floppies had only been tested on the front side, and might have defects on the back. But I don't remember that ever being a real problem.

[shiroiushi]

>Of course, the floppy manufacturers warned that the cheaper single sided floppies had only been tested on the front side, and might have defects on the back. But I don't remember that ever being a real problem.

I remember someone telling me that the floppy manufacturers were obviously lying, because C=64 computers normally wrote on one side (back, I think), while Apple ][ series computers wrote on the other side, so the disks had to be tested on both sides anyway so they could be used in either computer.

[m-a-r-c-e-l]

There were a lot of commercial hole punchers at that time. See here for some photos e.g.

https://www.forum64.de/index.php?thread/38406-diskettenloche...

[wileydragonfly]

We used a drill for #2 but the price difference disappeared pretty quickly iirc