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2 packs hard sectored 8" floppies

alan8086

Experienced Member
Joined
Oct 1, 2016
Messages
331
Location
Burnley, UK
Hi all, I just discovered I have 2 packs of hard sectored floppies - 36 index holes. What would have used them?

They came with my IMS 8000 which uses soft sectored disks - maybe the original owner bought them accidentally?
 
36 index holes would really be something special. The norm for 8" is 32 sector holes + 1 index hole.

Depending on your drives, however, you can still use them. If your drive has circuitry to separate sector from index, you're good to go--you can use either type of floppy. It's not uncommon for me to see 8" floppies that appear to be hard-sector, but, upon examination, you note that sector starts don't line up with sector holes...
 
So do a lot of other bits of equipment---various word processors (e.g. Wang and Harris), Zilog development systems (e.g. MCZ) and so on. The nice thing is that absent some oddball Memorex floppies, all HS 8" floppies are basically the same--32-sector.
 
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