y4101@dalcs.UUCP (Marcus Aurellius) (02/24/84)
The department of Microbiology of the Victoria General Hospital in Halifax
Nova Scotia (Canada) is currently using a few Apple IIe's to record specimen
data. They have been having diskette problems and have asked to me to find
out what diskettes are worth purchasing.
Thus far they have had no control over what company they get the diskettes
from (the Hospital sends an order out to tender and the department has been
getting a different brand each time). Thus far they have used:
Dysan Corporation (No problems encountered)
Elephant Memory Systems (Limited use but no problems)
Nashua (A rash of problems)
Wabash (Just received - no results yet)
Control Data (Apparently next on the list)
I did find out that the Nashua diskettes were stored in a cupboard near a
radiator which may have caused the problem but they claim to have had some of
them elsewhere (not near a heat source) and they still had problems.
If anyone has any idea of what brands have met the test of time, could you
please mail me the brand names. If anyone else would like to know the results
I would be happy to prepare a summery and mail it to you.
Thank you.
.. Marc J. Trottier (aka Marcus Aurellius)
Systems Analyst/Technician
Department of Microbiology
Victoria General Hospital hanson@ihuxq.UUCP (R. J. Hanson) (03/05/84)
Years ago... in the home of the mechanical bull...
I used to be the "caretaker" of a TI 990/4 (NOT a TI-99/4 Home Computer),
which is a floppy-based system using the 9900 in a (large) desktop box.
The TX/990 system disk was left in all day and night, rain or shine,
for a couple months at a time. I would then be forced to replace it
when it had worn down. There were differences we noted between brands.
We used "genuine IBM" floppies, and found that they were consistently
good. Purchasing then slipped us Memorex Markette (TM) and if I remember
right (a long time ago in a job far away), these did not do as well. We then
tried the "genuine Texas Instruments brand" and these were the best. I
believe they are made for TI by Dysan. They are strictly certified
error-free in a test procedure which TI requires of Dysan in the
contract between the two. Looking further, in the Inmac catalog, you
will see a note on manufacturer's recommendations, and TI recommends
these stricter reliability requirements.
Therefore my advice is Dysan or "Texas Instruments".
--
R. J. Hanson N9DZZ ihnp4!ihuxq!hanson
AT&T Bell Labs Room IW 1A-407
1100 East Warrenville Road
Naperville, IL 60566 312-979-7663SHahn@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA (04/02/84)
From: Sam Hahn <SHahn@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA> I've used Opus, Memorex, Scotch, Maxell, Xerox, BASF, Verbatim, and Dysan. Don't use Opus. Never had problems with Memorex, Scotch, Maxell, BASF, or Dysan. My only soft errors came on Verbatim (3 times) and my only hard errors came on Xerox disks. One man's experiences. -- sam hahn [samuel@score] P.S. Also Wabash, which I forgot to mention. No problems there. -------