Skip to main content
Home Forums 68kMLA MO/Floptical Help — #2
Post #2 by Anonymous Freak
Source Forum68kMLA
CategoryTroubleshooting
Post DateSat, 11 Jul 2009 - 04:42
Original URLhttps://68kmla.org/bb/threads/mo-floptical-help.17915/
Post
I remember buying MO disks in 1994 (3rd grade) for my Performa, only to be disappointing when I learned that I needed a special drive. Does anyone know what MO/floptical drives work with System 7? Does it mount like a floppy?
I can't remember the difference (if there is one) between magneto-optical and floptical, but it is a format that intrigues me. I use System 7 for all my writing, so I use floppies and Zips for backup. How reliable is MO?
"Floptical" generally was a term to refer specifically to 3.5" floppy-sized MO disks/drives. "MO", or "Magneto-Optical" is a generic term for any type of disk that is read optically (like a CD-ROM, with a laser,) and is written to by heating the section with the laser, but then actually changing the bit with a magnet. (Much older technology than CD-RW, which uses solely a laser to write.)

I have some old 230 MB MO drives/disks, that have been *VERY* reliable. (Mine are thicker than a normal floppy, so I don't call them 'floptical', which to me, means ones that are physically compatible with 3.5" disks.) I used one as my only drive of any kind on my IIfx for a few years. (The floppy drive was dead; my special black terminator was broken, so the HD wouldn't work; but this external drive did.)

mp.ls