Author Topic: Why don't computers have "B" drives?  (Read 1675 times)

Offline eskimo2

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Why don't computers have "B" drives?
« on: August 24, 2003, 07:41:25 PM »
Never seen one on a PC or network?

eskimo

Offline NUKE

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Why don't computers have "B" drives?
« Reply #1 on: August 24, 2003, 07:43:25 PM »
The B drive used to be reserved  for a second floppy drive I believe.

Offline Mark Luper

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Why don't computers have "B" drives?
« Reply #2 on: August 24, 2003, 07:46:51 PM »
If you install a second floppy drive it will become the "B" drive.
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Offline Chairboy

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Why don't computers have "B" drives?
« Reply #3 on: August 24, 2003, 07:47:16 PM »
They used to.  The main reason you would have an A and B drive was so you could have your program and bootstrap code on one drive and your data on another.  When hard drives became widespread, the need for the B drive switched to mainly copying data between floppies.  For the last 10+ years, that need hasn't really existed, so most people don't have two drives.  

PS, one very common use of B drives was to have both a 3.5" drive and a 5.25" drive so you could deal with both medias.

Short answer, no real need for it anymore, but the capabillity exists.
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Offline Raubvogel

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Why don't computers have "B" drives?
« Reply #4 on: August 24, 2003, 07:54:17 PM »
I could be wrong, but isn't the B drive a virtual drive that is used during formatting and installation of the operating system, then deleted?

Offline Dinger

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Why don't computers have "B" drives?
« Reply #5 on: August 24, 2003, 08:08:17 PM »
Nuke Luper and Chairboy are right.  If you open your computer case, you'll find that the cable that attaches to the floppy drive has another connector on it.  That's for the B drive.

Back in the good old days, Hard Drives were expensive. The original 8086 PCs very often came equipped with two 5 1/4" inch floppy drives  (and those 5 1/4" were sierra-hotel compared to the 8" models).   These things were really floppy.  Not only was the magnetic media flaccid, they were encased in some sort of cardboard.  Write protection usually involved a hulepunch. IIRC, at Single Density, a single DOS 5 1/4" floppy side at single density could hold 160 kb.  Of course, you could flip it over.  As time went on, you got drives that could read both sides, and you got "double density" disks, bringing it up to the maximum of 640 kb.

When the first mac was released, there hot media on the market were these smaller floppies encased in plastic.  The two big competing formats were 3" and 3 1/2".  The 3 1/2" won out, and became the standard on Macs, Amigas, and atari sts.  Maximum storage was around 720 kb ("double density, double sided")

On the PC front, the 3 1/2 became standard much later, probably around the late 80s.  Up until the first pentiums, it was standard to see a PC equipped with both a 5 1/4" and a 3 1/2" drive.  And the B drive would often as not be the 3 1/2".

Offline udet

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Why don't computers have "B" drives?
« Reply #6 on: August 24, 2003, 08:24:37 PM »
ahh the ignorance of the young ones :)

Offline Vulcan

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Why don't computers have "B" drives?
« Reply #7 on: August 24, 2003, 08:25:27 PM »
A few corrections. At the time 3.5" DD's (720k) were adapted PC's were using 1.2Mb 5.25" HDs.  Eventually PCs switched to 3.5" when 3.5" HDs arrived (1.44Mb). IIRC 5.25" DDs were 360k.

The B: drive served two functions. The obvious one was as the secondary floppy. It wasn't unusual too have two floppy drives in the old days.

The other function was as a 'virtual' floppy so that you could swap disks while copying files setting up stuff. For example, if you wanted to copy a file from one floppy disk to another and only had a single drive system you'd type:
copy a:myfile.txt  b:

The system would then read myfile.txt and prompt:
insert b: (or something like that)

You'd then whack in your second disk and it'd write the file.

You could even do copy *.* b: and you'd end up madly swapping between disks (or xcopy *.* b: to save a bit of swapping).

(DOS user since ver 2)

Offline AKS\/\/ulfe

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Why don't computers have "B" drives?
« Reply #8 on: August 24, 2003, 08:50:05 PM »
Ah DOS, the days of little overhead and hours wasted on boot disks.
-SW

Offline Gadfly

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Why don't computers have "B" drives?
« Reply #9 on: August 24, 2003, 09:04:40 PM »
For years, I did not, and would not, OWN a HD.  I used my A and B floppies and a RAM drive, no worries.

Offline SOB

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Why don't computers have "B" drives?
« Reply #10 on: August 24, 2003, 10:46:07 PM »
I though to copy a floppy on one drive you just used diskcopy...

diskcopy a: a:


SOB
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Offline Dinger

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Why don't computers have "B" drives?
« Reply #11 on: August 24, 2003, 11:28:59 PM »
Ahh yes Vulcan, that's right.
The 5 1/4 " DD was around 300 (you sure 360 and not 320?), but you could have stuff on both sides.  But IIRC the 5 1/2"ers with dual heads (double sided) were HDs.
The real **** of the 5 1/4" world was the commodore 64 disk drive. S-L-O-W.

Do you what I really loved? The way those macintoshes would get in those endless swap loops. (Please Insert Disk Labelled A.  You insert disk labelled A. Please Insert Disk Labelled B.  You insert disk labelled B. Please Insert Disk Labelled A. You go looking for the paperclip.  Then the damn thing yells at you for turning it off.)

Offline AKIron

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Why don't computers have "B" drives?
« Reply #12 on: August 24, 2003, 11:48:54 PM »
Soon they'll be asking "Why don't computers have "A" drives?"

Dell has already stopped shipping them as standard equipment.
Here we put salt on Margaritas, not sidewalks.

Offline Manedew

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Why don't computers have "B" drives?
« Reply #13 on: August 24, 2003, 11:54:34 PM »
Mac's beat em' to it....don't think they've had 3.5's inawhile    

B: drive ... last i had was combo 3.5 / 5¼ it burned out, haven't had one since ...
Bring's back memories of the real 'floppy' disk .... the 5¼

Offline Sixpence

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Why don't computers have "B" drives?
« Reply #14 on: August 25, 2003, 12:50:04 AM »
Quote
Originally posted by Dinger
Do you what I really loved? The way those macintoshes would get in those endless swap loops. (Please Insert Disk Labelled A.  You insert disk labelled A. Please Insert Disk Labelled B.  You insert disk labelled B. Please Insert Disk Labelled A. You go looking for the paperclip.  Then the damn thing yells at you for turning it off.)


rof!
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(and I still say he wasn't trying to spell possum!)