Re: SPARC build failing with boot.fs overflow

[David Laight <david%l8s.co.uk@localhost>]

On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 12:18:19PM +1030, Brett Lymn wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 09:20:18PM -0400, Michael wrote:
> > 
> > Not to mention the general unreliability of the media. The probability that 
> > there is a read error on one of the last two disks approaches 1.0 for any n 
> > > 2
> > 
> 
> I think that is more to do with lack of media quality these days, there
> is not much demand for floppy disks any more so there is not much
> motivation to make a quality product.  Back in the day when floppies
> were king if you paid for a reputable brand you could be confident that
> the number of read errors would be low.

OTOH I remember a system (from about 1977) where the floppies had to
be copied every week, because otherwise they would start getting
access errors.
Mind you those were 8" ones and were probably doing track-track
seeks for about 50% of the working day!
Was a lot better after a hardware mod to add a fan!

But it does have to be said that I had a lot of trouble finding
working media a few years ago when testing i386 sysinst.
And that only needed 2? floppies.

My suspicions are that the 5 1/4" drives I;ve got somewhere that
cost me best part of 200 quid back in the early 1980s are far
better made than the more recently bought 3 1/2" drives that
cost almost nothing.

I wonder how long the recently bought DVD writer drive will last.

        David

-- 
David Laight: david%l8s.co.uk@localhost