Jack -
In response to your question about the LS-120's backward compatibility, here are the facts.
Existing 1.44 MB floppy drives can read and write 720 KB and 1.44 MB floppy diskettes. That's all they were ever designed to do.
The LS-120 can read and write 720 KB and 1.44 MB floppy diskettes also. In addition, it can read and write to 120 MB diskettes. It uses two sets of read/write heads to accomplish this. In order to position the r/w heads accurately over the much thinner data tracks of the 120 MB diskettes, it uses a laser servo head, which reads a factory-etched holographic "roadmap" to locate the data tracks.
Existing floppy drives lack the necessary laser servo head and the second set of read/write heads, and thus cannot make use of the 120 MB media.
I don't know why anyone would ever think that the 120 MB diskettes invented specifically for the LS-120 would be useable in a 1.44 MB floppy drive. Of course I realize that not everyone is a professional computer nerd like me, but that isn't what "backward compatible" means. The drives are backward compatible, not the diskettes.
If the LS-120's 120 MB diskettes could be read and written to by all the existing floppy drives in the world, then clearly there would be no need to sell LS-120 drives. Nor would there be any market for after-market products like the Zip.
In the meantime, I agree with you completely that the LS-120's backward compatibility is no great asset. The only possible exception is in the notebook market, where using one drive to do two jobs is a definite plus.
Still haven't seen any notebook drives actually in the market from either Iomega or OR or Compaq, though.
Just as a silly side note, there is a third type of floppy diskette. The 2.88 MB diskette. 1.44 MB diskettes are known as HD (High Density), and the 2.88's are ED (Extra Density). Drives designed to use the 2.88 MB diskettes can read and write all three types of floppy diskettes, but regular 1.44 MB diskette drives can't use the 2.88's. Very few 2.88 MB diskette drives have been sold. I don't know whether or not the LS-120 can handle the 2.88 MB format diskettes.
- Allen |
