Picture this: You pull out a USB stick and, with a simple drill, you drill a hole in it, doubling its storage capacity. Well, not quite a USB stick, but back in the early days, we used a hack to do something similar with ordinary floppy disks.
In the late ’80s and early ’90s, floppy disks were the go-to method for storing digital data on personal computers. They came in various shapes and sizes, with the 3.5-inch floppy being the most popular choice, although the larger and thinner 5.25-inch disks were also in use. However, not all floppies were created equal.
5.25-inch Disk – The Big Black Disk we originally had: (Top Left in Picture)
-Single Density disks: 360 kilobytes (KB) of data
-Double Density disks : 720KB.
3.5-inch: Smaller, more solid disk (Bottom Left in Picture)
-Single Density disks: 720 kilobytes (KB) of data
-Double Density disks : 1.44 megabytes (MB)
The Ingenious Hack
So, what was this ingenious hack? It was as simple as using a drill to create an extra hole in the floppy disk’s casing. One of the most appealing aspects of this hack was the potential for cost savings. Official Double Density disks could be quite expensive, but with the drill hack you could save some cash.
Do you remember doing this?
Got any hacks for us to talk about? 🙂
