About Diskettes
Your
IBM
Personal
Computer
uses 5-1/4 inch (133 mm)
diskettes for storing information. (You may also have
heard
the
terms
"floppy
diskette," "mini-floppy,"
or
"disk"
-we
will use
"diskette.")
These diskettes can hold about 160,000 characters
(would
you
believe 163,840!)
of
data
and/or
program
information.
That's
about
110 pages from a book.
Write
Protect
Notch
(Some diskettes do
not
have this
notch.)
Exposed Recording
Surface
(DO NOT TOUCH)
Protective
Head Slot
Jacket
....
---Ir--Diskette
Envelope
The permanent protective
jacket
(which is black)
contains a flexible diskette
that
is
coated with a
magnetic substance. When in use,
the
diskette spins
inside the jacket. The read/write head comes
into
contact with
the
recording surface through
the
long
hole in
the
protective jacket, called the head slot.
Information
is
written
to
or
read from
the
magnetic
surface
of
the diskette, similar
to
the
wayan
ordinary tape recorder operates.
The information on a diskette can be read by
the
computer
as
often
as
it
needs,
or
the
computer
can
write new information on the diskette in an unused
space.
Or the computer may
replace old information with new
information by writing over it. In this case,
the
old
information
is
erased and can
no
longer be read.
Similarly,
if
you
record a Chicago Symphony program
on an Elvis Presley tape,
you
can
no
longer listen
to
Elvis.
DOS 3-19
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