Mastodawn

The unobtainium piece of the Seequa collection has arrived, and wow is it smaller than I imagined! The Tabor 3.25” drivette for these little disks were designed in a collaborative effort between Dysan Corporation from California, Tabor Corporation from Massachusetts, and Seequa Computer Corporation from Maryland. These rigid plastic disks could hold 500K on a single disk, and were to be the new “golden standard” of format for any luggable IBM compatible.

I will have my 3.25” disk, my NOS Drivette, and the Tabor edge adapter on display alongside my Seequa research at VCF East and VCF Midwest!

#vintagecomputing #seequa #floppydisks

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L.A.Mar 4

@mcjonestech Interesting. I need to look into this and see how they compare against those sony rigid disks that Amstrad (and spectrum after the purchase) used.

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Matthew Jones Mar 4

@lonelyautomata Hi! I can confirm this has the flop of a 5.25", but has the metal ring like a 3.5". It is like a weird hybrid of the two! I'm blanking (too early in the morning), what was the capacity of the 3" disks Amstrad used again?

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L.A.

@mcjonestech it may have been around 720kb, 360kb on each side (you had to flip them). My memory is pretty foggy, but I remember that when I formatted 3.5" 1.44mb floppies for use with the CPC I would have to cover the HD hole with tape.

What I find a bit confusing about these ones is the lack of a metal shield. The 3" ones had a the shield under the plastic, so it was very hard to accidentally damage it like a 3.5". We used to joke that you could drive over the disk and they would survive.