>I remember reading once, long ago, that it was possible to make new
>Twiggy disks by physically modifying a regular 5.25 floppy. Is this
>possible? It sounds too good to be true!
I've converted numerous 5.25" floppy diskettes for use in a Twiggy drive; it can be a bit tedious to do a good job, but not difficult.
I know a few other people have done this as well, perhaps they can contribute some tips that I'm not aware of.
The process I've used is:
It may be possible to do the cutting without opening the jacket to remove the media by inserting a suitable cutting surface into the jacket from the center hole, but I haven't tried this due to fear of damaging the media.
When first working on BLU, I collected a dozen or so brands of new-in-box 5.25" disks to see which media worked in the Twiggy drives I have. Some didn't initialize on the first try, others sometimes did, and a few seemed to usually work.
The one that had the highest success rate for me is 3M brand with UPC 51111 12883. It is a grey box with gold stripes labelled "DS,HD" "Formatted IBM"; 10 in a box. (There are other 3M DS,HD floppies in a very similar box with a different UPC that didn't work as well.)
I experimented with different ways of opening the jacket:
A fast way is to cut an edge off completely with scissors, but thereafter the jacket is much more floppy and so creates a higher danger of kinking and damaging the media during casual handling, so I only do this when I don't plan to re-use the jacket.
The method I normally use is to use a knife to cut a fold-over flap on the bottom, between the weld spots and the edge. The cut flap can then be bent open enough to pull the bottom of the jacket away and the media extracted. After re-assembling and getting the flap back in its original position, I gently press along the folded edge to get it to lay flat again (if pressed too tight, the media won't turn easily, so the flap/fold may need further adjustment). I've been cutting the "middle" one of the three flaps (the one beside the new head opening); I think I found re-assembly is easier using this one.
I've experimented with different ways of cutting the openings:
You can do all the cutting with just a sharp pointed knife, but for more speed and consistency I ended up using a couple of special tools:
For the rectangular hole and notch I use a 3/16" (4.8 mm) square chisel/punch to get nice corners, then cut between the corners with a knife. eg. 50K59.03 at
http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?p=65380&cat=1,43456
For the head opening, I made a template to use a Fiskars ShapeCutter. Because my template is just an oblong opening, the cut isn't perfectly symmetrical (due to the trailing distance of the cutter blade); it is functional and looks ok but I expect I'll make a better template that compensates for the blade trailing distance if I need to make another batch of Twiggy disks.
For the edge notches beside the head opening, I use scissors/snips/diagonal cutters and just cut a V shape. BTW, these notches are very important... try flexing the diskette without them and you'll see that the media will be creased quite easily.
I wonder if a laser cutter would be the optimum tool (perhaps eliminating the need to open the jacket and remove the media if a suitable protector could be slipped in through the center hole), but they say that cutting PVC with a laser creates poisonous fumes, so perhaps it isn't a good idea to try this casually.
I found that putting new media in original Apple Twiggy jackets didn't work well as the liners in those jackets seem to have somewhat more friction than the newer 3M jackets; the drive belt or center spindle seemed more likely to slip when using those jackets. Correspondingly, when trying to read an original Apple Twiggy diskette, I sometimes had more success if I moved the media to a 3M jacket.
In an effort to reduce media wear and friction on my Twiggy drives, I've also "disabled" the long foam pads that squeeze the jacket lining against the media beside the head openings.
Remember to clean the Twiggy heads when it isn't working as desired; they seem far more prone to dirty head problems than more modern floppy drives.
Good luck!
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