Types of diskettes for a computer. Information carrier diskette

Currently, IBM PC/XT/AT computers use disk drives that are compatible with Double Density (DD) and High Density (HD) floppy disks, having a diameter of 5.25 and 3.5 inches.

The MS-DOS FORMAT utility can format these floppy disks as follows:

High-density and dual-density floppy disks are magnetically coated in a variety of materials. High-density floppy disks have better coverage and can store information at a higher density.

Depending on the type of diskette, the FORMAT command can place a different number of tracks and sectors on it.

Below is a table by which you can determine the number of tracks and sectors on floppy disks formatted in a standard way:

Experiments show that both double-density and high-density floppy disks can accommodate more tracks and sectors than those shown in this table. As a result, the capacity of the diskette should increase. So a 5.25 inch double-density floppy disk formatted by standard means at 360 KB can be formatted at 800 KB, and a 5.25 inch high-density floppy disk at 1.44 MB.

To perform non-standard formatting of floppy disks and use them later for data storage, it is necessary to use special software. This software includes programs 800.COM, 900.COM, FDFORMAT.EXE and the domestic program PU_1700.COM created by Yu.I. Pankov.

Here are some tips for using custom-formatted floppy disks.

• Do not use nonstandard formatted diskettes to back up software distribution diskettes, especially operating systems. You may have problems installing software from non-standard diskettes.
• The best use for custom formatting programs is to format 5.25-inch (360 kilobyte) double-density floppy disks into an 800 kilobyte capacity. You can use such floppy disks to store archives, documentation, other software that is not critical to the track structure of the floppy disk used.

800.COM Program

The 800.COM program is a small residential program. When launched, it leaves a resident module of about 4 KB in memory, with little to no reduction in the amount of available memory. You need to run it before all operations with non-standard formatted floppy disks - formatting, writing and reading.

If you intend to make heavy use of non-standard formatted floppies, it's best to start 800.COM by placing a call to it in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file.

For example, if the 800.COM program is located in the UTILITY directory on the C: drive, put the following line in AUTOEXEC.BAT:

This program itself analyzes the IBM PC configuration and determines the number and type of computer drives:

You can dynamically disable and enable the 800.COM program by starting it with the /OFF and /ON options, respectively.

Once the 800.COM program is loaded, you can format regular floppy disks for higher capacity using the normal MS-DOS FORMAT command. In this case, you need to use the following format for calling this command:

The purpose of the parameters in the FORMAT command call is as follows:

The number of tracks and sectors that you can set without the risk of bad sectors depends on the type of drive you are using and the type of floppy disk. Below are tables for each type of drive that list the possible values ​​for the /T: and /N: options, as well as the corresponding floppy disk capacity.

• 5.25-inch double-density floppy disk drive (360 KB formatted floppy disk drive);

• 5.25-inch high-density floppy disk drive (1.2 MB formatted floppy disk drive);

Here's an example of formatting a double-density floppy disk in a high-density floppy drive. The following command allows you to format a regular 360 KB floppy disk to 800 KB:

In this case, the FORMAT command will format the floppy in drive A: to 800 kilobytes. You can write and read files on this floppy using the usual means: MS-DOS commands, etc. You must load the 800.COM driver before executing this command.

If you did not insert a call to the 800.COM program in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file, then after restarting the computer, you will need to specifically launch 800.COM to use non-standard formatted floppies.

Program PU_1700.COM

The PU_1700.COM program is similar to 800.COM in its purpose, but it has more features. The call format of the PU_1700.COM program is given below:

Here are some parameters of the PU_1700 program (the parameters are fully described in the documentation for the PU_1700 program).

You can place the load command PU_1700.COM directly in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. If the PU_1700.COM program is located in the UTILITY directory on the C: drive, put the following line in AUTOEXEC.BAT:

After starting the PU_1700 program, you can give the FORMAT command the following options:

You can increase the capacity of a floppy disk by setting the /T: and /N: options to the FORMAT command as required for the number of tracks and sectors on each track.

The number of tracks and sectors that you can set without the risk of bad sectors depends on the type of drive you are using. Below are tables for each type of drive that list the possible values ​​for the /T: and /N: options, as well as the corresponding floppy disk capacity.

• 5.25-inch double-density floppy disk drive (this is a floppy disk drive that is formatted at 360 kilobytes);

• 5.25" high-density floppy disk drive, this is a floppy disk drive formatted with 1.2 megabytes;

• 3.5-inch double-density floppy disk drive (720 KB formatted floppy disk drive);

• 3.5-inch high-density floppy disk drive (1.44 megabyte formatted floppy disk drive).

Unlike the 800 driver, the PU_1700 driver has two additional large volume formats:

• 1.44 MB for HD 5.25" (1.2 MB);
• 1.68 MB for HD 3.5" (1.44 MB).

To format a high-density floppy disk in a high-density floppy disk drive with a capacity of 1,702,400 bytes, you can use the following command:

Before executing this FORMAT command, the PU_1700 driver must be started. You can do this by adding a call to this driver in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file.

The /u option is required so that the FORMAT utility does not attempt to save data on the formatted diskette that is used by the UNFORMAT utility, which restores the contents of the diskette after an erroneous format. Since the structure of the floppy disk is changed, such storage of information is impossible.

As you can see, another 81 tracks are added when formatting. In principle, up to 83 tracks can be formatted, and the capacity of the floppy disk will increase. But you should keep in mind that there are drives that physically cannot position magnetic heads for 81 tracks (and even more so for 82 and 83). Therefore, we advise you to be careful when formatting additional tracks.

The evolution of the modern floppy disk

Most of the technologies used in personal computers were developed either after the advent of the PC, or specifically for them. One of the few exceptions is the floppy disk, aka floppy disk, aka floppy disk. Largely thanks to the floppy disk, the emergence of personal computers became possible, but it was thanks to personal computers that the floppy disk became so widespread. All capacities and formats below apply to IBM-compatible personal computers unless otherwise noted. This is due to their significantly wider distribution, especially in Russia. Therefore, below you will not find descriptions of exotic floppy partitioning formats - yes, fans of the Macintosh or Amiga platforms will not be offended by me.

The first floppy disk was developed by IBM in 1967. Thirty-two years is a very respectable age for computer technology, but, apparently, "my old woman is still alive." Let's try to trace her life in development.

The time of birth of our heroine refers to the initial period of development of mini- and microcomputers. They required a storage medium that was different from the bulky storage devices used at that time on magnetic and punched tapes, hard disks and punched cards (cardboard cards with rows of numbers and a complex pattern of holes punched by a machine - something like brass discs for a mechanical piano. - Note. ed.). The period of infancy and childhood, that is, the development of technologies, took four years, so that the first commercial drives were offered by IBM in 1971 - the same year that Intel introduced the 4004 processor. We can say that the two events coincided in time, since there was no prior intention to use the floppy drive on the future "Intel-compatible" personal computer. But this accident once again demonstrates the parallel development of various technologies, which led to the appearance of the first personal computers.

The development of our floppy heroine in some ways corresponds to the stages of growing up of homo sapiens, and in some ways it is completely opposite to it. With age, a person gains intelligence, his capabilities increase; the same can be said for floppy disks, which increase in capacity as technology improves. But the "growth" of diskettes has a completely opposite trend - it decreases with age.

Our heroine was born with a size (more precisely, a diameter) of 8 inches (203.2 mm), which is not enough for a person, but for a carrier with a capacity of just over 100 KB at that time it was just right. Named at birth as a flexible disk (Flexible Disk), she quickly received several slang names. For example, the "alias" floppy disk comes from the English word flop ("flap wings"). Indeed, the sound produced by waving a 20x20 cm envelope is similar to the noise produced by a bird of the appropriate size taking off. A diskette (diskette) similar media began to be called a little later, after the first reduction in size. This is perhaps the record for the number of names for the same technology.

Initially, a floppy disk consisted of two parts: a carrier and an envelope. The carrier was a round plate with a central hole reinforced at the edges and one or more index holes cut from a wide and thick double-sided magnetic tape. The envelope was made of plastic, smooth on the outside and covered with pile on the inside, and had holes for the spindle that rotated the media, a slot for the heads and optocouplers for reading the index.

At the very beginning, the partitioning of floppy disks into sectors was rigid, that is, each sector had its own index hole. Subsequently, the number of index holes was reduced to one, corresponding to the beginning of the track. Therefore, floppy disks of the Hard Sectored type (hard partition into sectors) and Soft Sectored (one index hole) coexisted for some time. Due to internal reserves, the volume of the media was increased from 100 to 256 KB, which remained the physical limit for standard 8-inch floppy disks. Until the end of the 70s, floppy disk drives were installed mainly in mini-, and then in microcomputers (the PC familiar to us belongs precisely to the class of microcomputers. - Note. ed.). As a result, the production of floppy drives was small, and therefore the prices for them went off scale for $ 1,000.

The first mass-produced personal computer to use 8-inch floppy disks was the Apple II, shown as a prototype in 1976. However, just a few months earlier, Shugart had announced a 5.25-inch floppy disk drive at a very reasonable price of $390. However, 8-inch floppy disks were used for quite a long time, and drive designs shone with variety. For example, in the Rainbow Personal Computer (DEC), to reduce cost, the two devices had a common head drive so that only one floppy disk could be accessed at a time. By the way, to the question of longevity. 8-inch floppy disks are still being produced: those who do not believe can check the Imation website (http://www.imation.com, formerly a division of 3M).

So, in 1976 there was the first reduction in the size of the floppy disk from 8 to 5.25 inches. Its volume briefly became equal to 180 KB, which was clearly not enough, so floppy disks soon appeared, which were recorded on both sides. They were called Double Density ("Double Density"), although it was not the density that was increased, but the volume. It was these drives that were installed in the IBM PC personal computer, which was released in 1981.

As the volume of programs and data grew, it became clear that the size of a 360 KB floppy disk was clearly insufficient. A new format was developed and, accordingly, new floppy disks and drives. For the manufacture of diskettes with a volume of 1.2 MB, improved magnetic materials were used, which made it possible to obtain a satisfactory level of signal from the read head while reducing the track width by half and increasing the recording density. Exactly doubling the number of tracks (from 48 to 96) made it possible to maintain backward compatibility, that is, a 1.2 MB floppy disk drive could read a 360 KB floppy disk. Interestingly, there were no cutouts or holes on the diskette, with which the drive could determine its type, this information was recorded in the table of contents.

However, having reached a decent (and practically limiting for this technology) density, a 5.25-inch floppy disk still suffered from "childhood diseases", that is, insufficient mechanical strength and the degree of protection of the media from external influences. Through the hole for the head block, the surface was easily contaminated, especially if the floppy disk was not stored in an envelope. The floppy disk was literally flexible: it could be rolled up and ... thrown into the nearest trash can after that. The inscriptions on the sticker could only be done with a soft felt-tip pen, as a ballpoint pen or pencil would push through the material of the envelope. So it's time for the soft disk to find a hard shell.

In 1980, Sony demonstrated a new standard floppy disk and drive, the 3.5-inch size. Now it has become difficult to call it flexible or floppy - “clapping”. The solid plastic body and the absence of an index hole provide mechanical protection for the media. The only remaining hole, intended for the access of the heads to the media, is covered by a spring-loaded metal shutter. To protect against accidental overwriting, there is not a sealed cutout, as on a 5.25-inch floppy disk (try to find the piece of black sticky paper you need at the right time!), But a movable shutter, which is part of the case design. Initially, the capacity of a 3.5-inch floppy disk was 720 KB (Double Density, DD), and then grew to 1.44 MB (High Density, HD).

It was such a drive (and only one) that was installed in computers of the sensational and rather disastrous due to incompatible innovations of the IBM PS / 2 series of computers. In the future, this standard, due to obvious advantages, replaced 5.25-inch floppy disks. True, the more convenient Sony standard floppy disks in a hard plastic case for a long time lost to the "five-inch" ones in terms of "price / capacity", and the compatibility problem made itself felt for a long time: 3.5-inch disk drives were far from being found everywhere.

The last evolutionary improvement of the floppy disk was undertaken by Toshiba in the late 80s. By improving the production technology of media and recording methods, the capacity of the floppy disk was doubled - up to 2.88 MB. However, this format did not catch on for a number of reasons. The high exchange rate adopted in a drive of this format (more than 1 Mbps) was not supported by most of the previously released controllers and chipsets designed for a speed of 500 Kbps, that is, to use the new drive, you needed to purchase an appropriate card. The cost of such a floppy disk is high, amounting to several dollars, compared to about 50 cents for a conventional 1.44 MB floppy disk. And finally, the inertia of the huge mass of 1.44 MB floppy drives already available at that time did not allow the market to swing towards 2.88 MB media - the use of a non-standard format could make it difficult to exchange with the outside world.

Anatomy of a floppy disk

Like any other magnetic disk media, a floppy disk is divided into concentric tracks. Tracks, in turn, are divided into sectors. Movement of the head to access the various tracks is accomplished by a special head position drive that moves the head unit radially from one track to another. The different sectors within a track are accessed simply by rotating the media. Interestingly, the numbering of tracks starts from "0", and sectors - from "1", and this system was subsequently transferred to hard drives.

The principle of recording information on a floppy disk is the same as in a tape recorder: there is a direct mechanical contact of the head with a magnetic layer deposited on an artificial film - mylar. This causes a low read / write speed (the media cannot move quickly relative to the head), low reliability and durability (after all, mechanical erasure and media wear occur). Unlike a tape recorder, recording is carried out without high-frequency bias - by magnetization reversal of the carrier material to saturation.

As already noted, the initial marking of an 8-inch floppy into sectors was rigid, that is, the beginning of each sector corresponded to an index hole, the passage of which through the optocoupler caused an electrical impulse. This simplified the design of the controller (no need to track the beginning of each sector) and drive (no need to maintain high rotational speed stability), but limited the increase in capacity due to internal reserves and reduced strength. Subsequently, thanks to the progress of microelectronics, the number of index holes was reduced to one, corresponding to the track header, and the sector headers were identified by the controller. 3.5-inch floppy disks do not have an index hole, synchronization is performed solely by reading the headers.

The positioning of the head at first was most often carried out using the “stepper motor-screw-nut” mechanism. The block of heads was mounted on a carriage moving along guides parallel to the radius of the floppy disk. In the carriage there was a hole through which the screw passed, and on the hole there was a protrusion that entered the thread on the screw and played the role of the thread section of the nut. The stepper motor rotated the lead screw, moving the block of heads in the radial direction by means of a nut in one step by one track. On an 8-inch floppy disk, only such a mechanism could provide accurate positioning of the carriage with its large stroke (about 60 mm). After the advent of smaller floppy disks (5.25 and 3.5 inches), another drive kinematic scheme was developed that is still used today. It is based on a flexible elastic metal strip, one end mounted on a carriage, and the other on a drum mounted on a stepper motor shaft. When the motor shaft (and drum) is rotated, the strip is wound or unwound, moving the carriage with the block of heads forward along the diskette radius with its other end.

The general design principles of the head block of classic floppy disks have undergone little change. Their peculiarity lies in the presence of two tunnel erase heads located on the sides behind the record / playback head. The role of these heads is to exclude the interference of information recorded on adjacent tracks. You can illustrate their work with the following example: one person sprinkles sand on the path, and two people following him sweep all the sand that has fallen over the edges of the path inside.

The drives that are supposed to replace the classic floppy disk use even more complex heads that must interact with two different media, sometimes even based on different operating principles.

The diskette will still have time to catch a cold at the funeral of its "murderers"

So, the evolutionary development of the floppy disk has ended due to the fact that the technology has reached its limit. A period of revolutions has begun, and, as in the case of a political revolution, each revolutionary knows better than anyone what the "revolutionized" users need, and acts in accordance with this. The result is a lot of formats that are different from each other, so that the real compatibility between all these devices is ensured only by the fact that they can also work with a 1.44 MB floppy disk. The "killers" of the floppy disk line up: they push with their elbows and interfere with each other. We list only the most "loud" names of these unfortunate killers:

• The LS-120 (Laser Servo) is the brainchild of Mitsubishi Electronics America and Winstation Systems, has a capacity of 120 MB and a maximum transfer rate of 4 MB / s (for SCSI interface). Can also be connected via the IDE interface. Like Sony's new 200MB HiFD, this drive uses different heads to handle 1.44MB floppy disk and high capacity media. A magnetic head with a "laser sight" is used to read/write a 120 MB media. That is, the positioning of the head is carried out in the same way as it happens in CD-ROM drives, but only along service tracks specially applied during the manufacture of the media, which cannot be rewritten. On the surface of the LS-120 floppy disk, 2490 tracks per inch fit against 135 tracks per inch for conventional 1.44-megabyte floppies. An analogue of the LS-120 in terms of the principle of operation and volume, the SuperDisk Drive appeared as a result of the development of Imation (formerly a division of 3M).
• The HiFD (High Capacity Floppy Disk) diskette and drive are jointly developed by Sony, TEAC, Alps and Fuji. With a spindle speed of 3600 rpm, a transfer rate of about 600 KB / s is provided (according to other sources, Sony HiFD performance reaches 3.6 MB / s - testing by our laboratory will show. - Note. ed.). The capacity of the cartridge is 200 MB.
• The UHC-31130 drive was developed by Mitsumi Electric and Swan Instruments.
• The Ultra High Density (UHD) drive from Caleb Technology Corp has a capacity of 144 MB. According to the developers, this drive with an IDE interface provides a sevenfold increase in performance compared to a traditional floppy drive. Caleb UHD has a claimed data transfer rate of 970 KB/s, costs about $70 and plans to increase the storage capacity to 540 MB in the future.
• Pro-FD from Samsung has a capacity of 123 MB and a transfer rate of 625 KB/s. For positioning, exclusively magnetic technology with self-alignment is used.

The sheer abundance of technologies and formats gathered at the floppy's "funeral" suggests that rumors of her death are greatly exaggerated. The reason for the wide popularity (maybe forced, since there is no and cannot be a replacement for it in the current situation) is precisely that you can not check the presence of a certain type of drive in the company where the data is sent: you do not need to find out from the secretary for a long time whether they have Zip or what kind of magneto-optics they use. About 100 million 1.44 MB floppy drives were sold last year, according to Disk/Trend.

The floppy drive has not only not died, but it has not even weakened its positions - in terms of unit sales, it is 12 times stronger than all its competitors combined, including the Iomega Zip.

Therefore, my personal opinion is this: if anyone manages to bury a floppy disk, then not all these "gravediggers" - they repel each other more, trying to take possession of the legacy of the culprit of the event, than they do business. Moreover, they already have a competitor that has the main qualities of a floppy disk, namely: complete and absolute compatibility and mass character. I mean CD. As the prices of rewritable and rewritable discs and related drives come down, they will become more widespread. Their main advantage is the "handicap" of hundreds of millions of already installed drives and full compatibility with each other.

A standard floppy drive has a data transfer rate of 62 KB/s and an average seek time of 84 ms. This, along with the ISA bus (to which 1.44 MB drives were connected until recently), is a serious limitation on their performance. Even very slow (by the standards of high-density drives) LS-120 class drives have a seek time of about 70 ms, and a data transfer rate of up to 565 KB / s.

ComputerPress 8 "1999

"The year is 1967. IBM's media engineering labs at IBM in San Jose are trying to build a low-cost device that can store and transfer firmware for processors, mainframes, and control modules. The price of the device must not exceed $5 (otherwise, it cannot be considered replaceable).

Now it's 2005 - 38 years have passed since the appearance of the first prototype of the floppy disk, but FDD continues to live! What is the secret of such survivability of this "relic" of the past, the same as a matrix printer or a COM port? It seems to me, in the ratio price / reliability / quality. It is now difficult for us to understand what a revolution the ordinary floppy disk caused in its time. It's a pity! In an instant, tons of punched cards, kilometers of magnetic tape were no longer needed. One plastic envelope and no problems or mistakes! What will be told today should reveal to the reader the genius of such an unprepossessing, at first glance, invention as an ordinary floppy disk.

Floppy drive disks are believed to have been invented in 1971 to solve a problem that IBM faced with building the System 370 computer. The problem was that the programs stored in its semiconductor memory were erased whenever the computer's power was turned off. “To reboot the machine, you had to rewrite the control program into memory,” recalled Al Shugart, then manager of direct access storage devices at IBM. Subsequently, the founder of Shugart Associates and the manufacturer of storage devices - Seagate Technology.

Although Shugart is often called the father of the floppy disk, he himself considers David Noble to be its real creator. Noble, was a senior engineer at the San Jose laboratory and steadfastly endured on his shoulders the hardships of working as Shugart's only subordinate. First of all, Noble tested the technologies that existed at that time. But soon I realized that it was necessary to look for fundamentally new ways. It was then that the first floppy disk was proposed. Within a year, Noble (whose group had already grown significantly) completed work on a device that IBM called the "memory disk". It was actually a floppy disk. It was an 8-inch plastic disk coated with ferrous oxide, providing read-only access. This disk weighed about 2 ounces, its capacity was 80 Kbytes. The turning point in the creation of the floppy disk was the invention of the protective case. "We got our drive working, but we couldn't come up with a good protective shell for it," Shugart recalled. - "Any speck of dust completely destroyed the data. The percentage of errors was very high." And so the developers came up with the idea to put the device in a case made of non-woven material, which would provide constant wiping of the surface of the floppy disk during its rotation. Thus, the surface always remained clean. "This idea ultimately decided the whole thing," says Shugart.

After extensive testing, the floppy was built into the System 370; this happened in 1971. It was also used to load firmware into an IBM Merlin 3330 disk pack controller.

Yet the design of the floppy disk, which appeared in 1971, has not become the industry standard, according to Jim Porter, now president of the analytics firm Disk/Trend. At the time in question, Porter worked for MEMOREX, an independent floppy disk company. In 1973, IBM introduced a new version of the floppy, this time for the 3704 Data Entry System. "The recording format was completely different, and the floppy was spinning the other way," Porter explained. It provided the ability to read and write and allowed you to store up to 256 KB of data. Users had the opportunity to enter data from floppy disks, and not from punched cards. The fundamental difference of the invention from all the previous ones was in the floppy disk drive (floppy disk, or just a floppy disk), where there were two motors: one provided a stable rotation speed of the diskette inserted into the drive, and the second moved the write-read head. The rotation speed of the first motor depended on the type of diskette and ranged from 300 to 360 rpm. The motor for moving the heads in these drives has always been a stepper. With its help, the heads moved along the radius from the edge of the disk to its center at discrete intervals. Unlike the hard drive, the heads in this device did not "hover" above the surface, but touched it.

Representatives of IBM argued that the new device can accommodate the same amount of information as 3,000 punched cards. The release of the new floppy was a kind of starting pistol shot for the manufacturers of these devices. Even now, some companies use eight-inch floppy disks!!! Mainly when working with computerized machines. But in 1976, around the same time that the first personal computers appeared, the 5.25-inch floppy disk was developed.

In the words of Porter (of Wang Laboratories) - who was working on a desktop computer that could perform the functions of a word processor: - "The eight-inch floppy disk was obviously too big for him." The company, in collaboration with Shugart Associates, began work on a smaller device. "We discussed the size of the floppy disk very heatedly - we sat all night in one of the bars in Boston. The answer was prompted by a case - someone drew attention to a napkin placed under a glass of cocktail, its size was just 5.25 inches, Porter recalled. “We stole it, brought it to Boston, and told our engineers: “Since such a trifle is in demand, let our floppy disk be the same size.” The improvement of floppy disks did not stop at the size of a napkin, the result was the now so popular three-inch floppy disk, developed by Sony Corporation more than 30 years ago. This drive lived a rich life and lives to this day, although it should be noted that most companies have already abandoned their own production of three-inch floppy disks. One of the first firms to close its floppy disk factories was KAO in 1996, followed by IBM, 3M/Imation. Most of these companies have outsourced their production to third parties or switched to the now trendy practice of outsourcing. Already in the mid-90s, all experts started talking about the fact that the speed, and most importantly, the capacity of floppy disks, no longer meets the needs of today. Consumption of standard floppy disks stabilized, and by the end of 2000 sales began to decline worldwide.

Sales of 3.5" floppy disks in Europe (million units)

YEAR 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Sales 565 560 572 505 450

The situation in Russia turned out to be somewhat different. Here, the growth of the floppy disk market in quantitative terms continued until 2002. Now it is worth turning to the technical side of the issue. It is known that for each of the standard sizes of floppy disks (5.25 or 3.5 inches) their own special drives of the corresponding form factor were developed. Floppy disks of each size (5.25 and 3.5 inches) became double-sided (Double Sided, DS), and single-sided gradually ceased to be produced.

The recording density could be different:

• single (Single Density, SD);
• double (Double Density, DD);
• high (High Density, HD).

Since few people remember single density anymore, I will skip this classification, and talk only about double-sided double-density floppy disks (DS / DD, capacity 360 or 720 KB) and high-density double-sided floppy disks (DS / HD, capacity 1,2, 1, 44 or 2.88 MB). The recording density of a floppy disk is determined by the size of the gap between the disk and the magnetic head, and the quality of the recording (reading) itself depends on the stability of the gap. To increase the density, it was vital to reduce the gap. However, this significantly increased the requirements for the quality of the working surface of the floppy disk. Aluminum alloy D16MP (MP - magnetic memory) began to be used as a material for the manufacture of magnetic disks.

The floppy disk itself was a layer of magnetically soft material deposited on a special substrate made of a polymeric non-magnetic plastic substance, the degree of rigidity of which could be different depending on the implementation. The carrier itself was placed in a paper, plastic or other casing-case. In the casing, the floppy disk was freely rotated by the drive of the disk drive through the window of the central grip. This provided the area of ​​the track under the read/write device - the read/write head. Holes were located on the casing of the floppy disk:

• Central grip
• Head positioning hole
• a physical write protection hole;
• guide holes and grooves;
• · openings of automatic detection of the type of magnetic coating;
• hole for determining the full turnover of the carrier;
• · The hole for positioning the magnetic read/write heads of 3.14 inch media is closed with a metal latch.
• · Hole for central grip and rotation on the drive spindle of the disc (unlike 5.25-inch media, located only on the underside of the floppy disk).

Another fundamental innovation, for its time, was such an operation as formatting. Initially, floppy disks were formatted using special software - quite unusual for today's layman. As a rule, floppy disk manufacturers specified a parameter called the number of dots per inch of the media - TRACK PER INCH (TPI). This parameter said what maximum density of the regions of independent magnetization the carrier can have.

The first disc drives were huge! They were not located inside the system unit, but were located outside. The drive was a universal read/write device. Each type of media, as a rule, required its own device - for reading 8", 5" and 3" floppy disks. Such a drive consisted of a motor, a media rotation control system, a motor, a read / write head positioning control system, signal generation and conversion circuits and other electronic devices.

It remains to conclude from the above that the development of a conventional floppy disk has become one of the most important components of the success of personal computers.

3.4. COMPUTER MEMORY

FLOPPY DRIVES

Diskette- a portable magnetic storage medium used for multiple recording and storage of data of relatively small volume. This type of carrier was especially common in the 1970s and late 1990s. Instead of the term "floppy disk", the abbreviation is sometimes used KMT- “floppy disk” (respectively, a device for working with floppy disks is called NGMD- "floppy disk drive").

Typically, a floppy disk is a flexible plastic plate coated with a ferromagnetic layer, hence the English name "floppy disk" ("floppy disk"). This plate is placed in a plastic case that protects the magnetic layer from physical damage. The shell is either flexible or rigid. Floppy disks are written and read using a special device - a floppy disk drive (floppy drive).

Floppy disks usually have a write protection feature that allows you to grant read-only access to data.

Floppy disks (8″; 5, 25″ ; 3.5″ respectively)

Story

· 1971 - The first 200 mm (8″) floppy disk with an appropriate drive was introduced by IBM. The invention itself is usually attributed to Alan Shugart, who worked at IBM in the late 1960s.

· 1973 - Alan Shugart founds his own firm, Shugart Associates.

· 1976 - Alan Shugert developed the 5.25″ floppy disk.

· 1981 - Sony introduces the 3.5″ (90 mm) floppy disk. In the first version, the volume is 720 kilobytes (9 sectors). The later version has a capacity of 1440 kilobytes or 1.40 megabytes (18 sectors). It is this type of floppy disk that becomes the standard (after IBM uses it in its IBM PC).

Later, the so-called ED-floppies appeared (from the English. Extended Density- “extended density”), which had a volume of 2880 kilobytes (36 sectors), which were never widely used.

Formats

It should be noted that the actual capacity of floppy disks depended on how they were formatted. Since, except for the earliest models, virtually all floppy disks did not contain hard-coded tracks, the road for experimentation in the field of more efficient use of the floppy disk was open to system programmers. The result was the emergence of many incompatible floppy disk formats, even under the same operating systems. For example, for the RT-11 and its versions adapted in the USSR, the number of incompatible floppy disk formats in circulation exceeded a dozen. (The most famous are MX, MY used in DVK).

Adding to the confusion was the fact that Apple used drives in its Macintosh computers that used a different magnetic encoding principle than the IBM PC. As a result, despite using identical floppy disks, transferring information between platforms on floppy disks was not possible until Apple introduced high-density SuperDrives that operated in both modes.

The "standard" IBM PC floppy disk formats differed in disk size, the number of sectors per track, the number of sides used (SS stands for single-sided floppy, DS for double-sided), as well as the type (recording density) of the drive. The type of drive was marked as SD - single density, DD - double density, QD - quadruple density (used in clones, such as Robotron-1910 - 5.25″ floppy disk 720 K, Amstrad PC, PC Neuron - 5.25″ floppy disk 640 K , HD - high density (differed from QD by an increased number of sectors), ED - extended density.

8-inch drives have long been included in the BIOS and supported by MS-DOS, but there is no exact information about whether they were supplied to consumers (perhaps they were supplied to enterprises and organizations and were not sold to individuals).

In addition to the above format variations, there were a number of improvements and deviations from the standard floppy disk format. The most famous - 320/360 Kb floppy disks Iskra-1030 / Iskra-1031 - in fact represented themselves SS/QD floppy disks, but their boot sector was marked as DS/DD. As a result, a standard IBM PC drive could not read them without the use of special drivers (800.com), and the Iskra-1030/Iskra-1031 drive, respectively, could not read the standard DS/DD floppy disks from the IBM PC.

Special expansion drivers BIOS 800, pu_1700 and a number of others made it possible to format floppy disks with an arbitrary number of tracks and sectors. Since disk drives usually supported from one to 4 additional tracks, and also allowed, depending on the design features, to format 1-4 sectors per track more than required by the standard, these drivers provided the appearance of such non-standard formats as 800 KB (80 tracks, 10 sectors) 840 KB (84 tracks, 10 sectors), etc. The maximum capacity sustained by this method was 3.5″ HD drives, was 1700 KB.

This technique was subsequently used in Windows 98, as well as Microsoft's DMF floppy format, which expanded the capacity of floppy disks to 1.68 MB by formatting floppy disks into 21 sectors in the IBM-like XDF format. XDF was used in OS/2 distributions, and DMF was used in distributions of various Microsoft software products.

Finally, a fairly common modification of the 3.5″ floppy disk format is their formatting to 1.2 MB (with a reduced number of sectors). This feature can usually be enabled in the BIOS of modern computers. This use of 3.5″ is common in Japan and South Africa. As a side effect, activating this BIOS setting will usually read floppy disks formatted with 800-type drivers.

The extra (non-standard) tracks and sectors sometimes contained copy protection data from proprietary floppy disks. Standard programs such as diskcopy, did not transfer these sectors when copying.

The unformatted capacity of a 3.5″ floppy disk, determined by recording density and media area, is 2 MB.

The drive height for 5.25″ floppy disks is 1 U. All CD drives, including Blu-ray, are the same width and height as a 5.25″ drive (this does not apply to laptop drives).

The width of a 5.25″ drive is almost three times its height. This was sometimes used by manufacturers of computer cases, where three devices placed in a square "basket" could be reoriented with it from a horizontal to a vertical arrangement.

disappearance

One of the main problems associated with the use of floppy disks was their fragility. The most vulnerable element of the floppy disk design was a tin or plastic casing covering the floppy disk itself: its edges could bend, which led to the floppy disk getting stuck in the drive, the spring that returned the casing to its original position could be displaced, as a result, the floppy disk casing was separated from the case and no longer returned to initial position. The floppy plastic case itself did not serve as sufficient protection for the floppy disk from mechanical damage (for example, when a floppy disk fell on the floor), which put the magnetic media out of action. Dust could get into the gap between the floppy case and the casing. And the floppy disk itself could be relatively easily demagnetized by the action of metal magnetized surfaces, natural magnets, electromagnetic fields near high-frequency devices, which made storing information on diskettes extremely unreliable.

The massive displacement of floppy disks from everyday life began with the advent of rewritable CDs, and especially flash memory-based media, which have a much lower unit cost, orders of magnitude higher capacity, a greater actual number of rewrite cycles and durability, and faster data exchange.

An intermediate option between them and traditional floppy disks are magneto-optical media, Iomega Zip, Iomega Jaz and others. Such removable media is sometimes also referred to as floppy disks.

However, even in 2009, a floppy disk (usually 3.5") and an appropriate drive are needed (if it is not possible to do this via the Internet directly from the operating system) in order to "flash" the BIOS flash memory of many motherboards, for example, Gigabyte. are also used to work with small files (usually text files), to transfer these files from one computer to another.So with full confidence we can say that floppy disks will be used for several more years, at least until the moment when the price of the cheapest flash drives will not be comparable to the prices of floppy disks (their difference is now ~10 times, but steadily decreasing).

Formats, depending on the diameter of the disc

eight"

Structurally, an 8″ floppy disk (a disk with a diameter of 8 inches) is a disk made of polymeric materials with a magnetic coating, enclosed in a flexible plastic case. There are holes in the case: a large round one in the center - for the spindle, a small round one - an index hole window that allows you to determine the beginning of the track, and a rectangular one with rounded ends - for the magnetic heads of the drive. There is also a notch at the bottom, removing the sticker from which you can protect the disc from writing. Floppy disk formats differ in the number of sectors per track. Depending on the format, 8″ floppy disks contain the following amounts of information: 80, 256 and 800 KB.

5¼″

Plastic ring on the edges of the 5¼″ floppy disk drive hole for increased wear resistance

The design of a five-inch (5.25 inches is approximately equal to 13.34 centimeters) floppy disk differs little from an eight-inch one: the index hole window is located on the right, and not on top, the write protection slot is also on the right side of the floppy disk. For better preservation of the disc, its case is made more rigid, reinforced around the perimeter. To prevent premature wear, an anti-friction gasket is placed between the case and the disc, and the edges of the drive hole are reinforced with a plastic or metal ring.

There were floppies with a rigid breakdown into sectors: they were distinguished by the presence of several index holes in the number of sectors. Subsequently, this scheme was abandoned.

Both floppy disks and five-inch disk drives are single-sided and double-sided. When using a single-sided drive, it is not possible to read the other side by simply turning the floppy over due to the location of the index hole window - this requires the presence of a similar window located symmetrically to the existing one. The data protection mechanism has also been revised - the window is located on the right, and the sealed hole means a protected disk. This was done to protect against incorrect installation.

Recording formats on five-inch floppy disks allow you to store 110, 360, 720 or 1200 kilobytes of data on it.

• Floppy drive 5¼″

Disassembled 5.25" floppy disk (case open).jpg

Floppy disk 5.25 inches disassembled (with open case): 1 - case; 2 - anti-friction gaskets; 3 - window for the drive spindle; 4 - index hole window; 5 - window for magnetic heads; 6 - polymer disk with magnetic coating; 7 - hole for the drive spindle; 8 - index hole; 9 - write protection notch

Floppy disk case 5.25 inches unfolded.jpg

Open case

5.25 inch floppy disk.jpg

magnetic disk

The reverse side of the 5.25-inch floppy disk - options for attaching the case valves.jpg

Case valve fastening options: heat sealing (top) and gluing (bottom)

Information about the contents of the floppy disk is indicated on the label, usually located on the front side in the opposite part of the hole for the magnetic head of the disk drive.

Paper envelopes are commonly used to store and transport floppy disks. The envelopes contain various information about the manufacturer of the floppy disk, or its content. The back of the envelope sometimes contains information on the correct use and storage of the floppy disk.

Information on using the diskette on the back of the envelope

3½″

The fundamental difference between a 3½″ floppy disk is a hard plastic case. Instead of an index hole, 3½″ floppy disks use a metal sleeve with a mounting hole located in the center of the floppy disk. The drive mechanism captures the metal sleeve, and the hole in it allows you to correctly position the floppy disk, so there is no need to make a hole directly in the magnetic disk for this. Unlike 8″ and 5¼″ floppy disks, the 3½″ floppy head window is closed by a sliding metal shutter that opens when it is inserted into the drive. Write protection is made by a sliding shutter in the lower left corner. At the bottom right are windows that allow the drive circuit to determine the recording density on a floppy disk by the number of holes:

• no - 720 KB,
• one - 1.44 MB,
• two - 2.88 MB.

Despite many shortcomings - sensitivity to magnetic fields and insufficient capacity by the mid-90s, the 3½ ″ format lasted a third of a century on the market, starting to lose ground only after the advent of affordable flash memory drives.

3½″ floppy drive

1 - a window that determines the recording density (on the other side - a write protection switch); 2 - disk base with holes for the driving mechanism; 3 - protective shutter of the open area of ​​​​the body; 4 - plastic floppy case; 5 - anti-friction gasket; 6 - magnetic disk; 7 - recording area (one sector of one track is conventionally highlighted in red).

Iomega Zip

By the mid-90s, even 2.88 MB of floppy disk capacity was no longer enough. Several formats claimed to replace the 3.5″ floppy disk, among which Iomega Zip floppy disks won the most popularity. Just like the 3.5″ floppy disk, the Iomega Zip media was a soft polymer disk coated with a ferromagnetic layer and enclosed in a hard case with a protective shutter. Unlike a 3.5″ floppy disk, the hole for magnetic heads was located at the end of the case, and not on the side surface. There were Zip floppy disks for 100, 250, and by the end of the existence of the format - and 750 MB. In addition to being larger, Zip drives provided more reliable data storage and faster read and write speeds than 3.5″. However, they were never able to replace 3-inch floppy disks due to the high price of both disk drives and floppy disks, and also because of the unpleasant feature of the drives, when a floppy disk with mechanical damage to the disk disabled the drive, which, in turn, could ruin the inserted into it after that a floppy disk.

Formats

It should be noted that the actual capacity of floppy disks depends on how they are formatted. Since, except for the earliest models, virtually all floppy disks do not contain hard-coded tracks, the road for experimentation in the field of more efficient use of the floppy disk was open to system programmers. The result was the emergence of many incompatible floppy disk formats, even under the same operating systems.

Diskette formats in IBM hardware

The "standard" formats of IBM PC floppy disks differed in disk size, the number of sectors per track, the number of sides used (SS stands for single-sided floppy disk, DS - double-sided), as well as the type (recording density) of the drive - the type of drive was marked:

• SD (English) single density, single density, first appeared in the IBM System 3740),
• D.D. (English) Double Density, double density, first appeared in IBM System 34),
• QD (English) Quadruple Density, quadruple density, used in domestic clones of Robotron-1910 - 5¼″ floppy disk 720 K, Amstrad PC, Neuron I9.66 - 5¼″ floppy disk 640 K),
• HD (English) high density, high density, differed from QD by an increased number of sectors),
• ED (English) Extra High Density, ultra-high density).

Additional (non-standard) tracks and sectors sometimes contained copy protection data from proprietary floppy disks. Standard programs such as diskcopy, did not transfer these sectors when copying.

The first (more precisely, 0th) is the lower head. In single-sided drives, only the bottom head is actually used, and the top head is replaced by a felt pad. At the same time, it was possible to use double-sided floppy disks on single-sided drives, formatting each side separately and turning it over if necessary, but in order to take advantage of this opportunity, a second index window had to be cut in the plastic envelope of an 8-inch floppy disk, symmetrically to the first.

All floppy drives have a spindle speed of 300 rpm, with the exception of the high density 5¼″ floppy drive, which has a spindle speed of 360 rpm.

Diskette formats in other foreign equipment

Additional confusion was introduced by the fact that Apple used disk drives in its Macintosh computers that used a different magnetic encoding principle than on the IBM PC - as a result, despite the use of identical diskettes, transferring information between platforms on diskettes was not possible until that moment. when Apple introduced high-density SuperDrives that worked in both modes.

A fairly common modification of the 3½″ floppy disk format is their formatting to 1.2 MB (with a reduced number of sectors). This feature can usually be enabled in the BIOS of modern computers. This use of 3½″ is common in Japan and South Africa. As a side effect, activating this BIOS setting will usually make it possible to read floppy disks formatted with 800.com type drivers.

Features of the use of floppy disks in domestic technology

In addition to the above format variations, there were a number of improvements and deviations from the standard floppy disk format:

• for example, for the RT-11 and its versions adapted in the USSR, the number of incompatible floppy disk formats in circulation exceeded a dozen. The most famous are MX, MY used in DVK;
• 320/360-kilobyte floppy disks Iskra-1030/Iskra-1031 are also known - in fact, they were SS/QD floppy disks, but their boot sector was marked as DS/DD. As a result, a standard IBM PC drive could not read them without using special drivers (such as 800.com), and the Iskra-1030 / Iskra-1031 drive, respectively, could not read standard DS / DD floppy disks from IBM PC;
• ZX-Spectrum computers used 5.25″ and 3.5″ floppy disks, but used their own unique TR-DOS format - 16 sectors per track, each sector 256 bytes (instead of 512 bytes standard for IBM PC). Both double-sided and single-sided floppy disks and disk drives were supported. As a result, the amount of data was 640 and 320 KB, respectively. The format supports only the root directory, which occupies only the first 8 sectors of the 0th track, the 9th sector contains system information about the floppy disk - type (TR-DOS or not), single or double-sided disk, total number of files and number of free sectors ( not bytes, but sectors). Sectors 10 to 16 on track 0 are not used. All files are located only sequentially - the TR-DOS format has no idea about fragmentation, and the maximum file size is 64 KB. After deleting a file inside the occupied space, free sectors appear, which can no longer be occupied until the ″Move″ disk compaction command is executed. On IBM PC compatible computers, such floppy disks can only be read and written using special programs, such as ZX Spectrum Navigator v.1.14 or ZXDStudio.

Information security

One of the main problems associated with the use of floppy disks is their fragility. A magnetic disk can be relatively easily demagnetized by the action of metal magnetized surfaces, natural magnets, electromagnetic fields near high-frequency devices, which makes the storage of information on floppy disks quite unreliable: even a single transportation of a floppy disk with information in electric public transport (trolleybus, tram, subway) can cause the information on the disk to be lost.

The most vulnerable element of the floppy disk design is a tin or plastic casing that covers the floppy disk itself: its edges can be bent, which leads to the floppy disk getting stuck in the drive, the spring returning the casing to its original position can be displaced, as a result, the floppy casing is separated from the case and no longer returns to initial position. The floppy plastic case itself does not provide sufficient protection for the floppy disk from mechanical damage (for example, when a floppy disk falls on the floor), which disable the magnetic media. Dust can get into the gap between the floppy case and the case.

Current position

At present, the mass use of diskettes has practically ceased. Since 2010, a large number of motherboards for desktop personal computers have been produced that do not contain a connector for connecting a floppy drive at all. From laptops, built-in disk drives completely disappeared a few years earlier.

Electronic keys when working with the "Bank-Client" systems, providing an electronic digital signature of a document, previously distributed on diskettes, are increasingly being issued in the form of a flash drive with a biometric protection function.

When installing drivers for hardware (for example, a RAID array) during the installation of modern MS Windows operating systems (Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 7), a flash drive can also be used.

If there are no drives connected to the appropriate "classic" interface connector on the motherboard, you can use an external device with a USB or SCSI interface.

Production

As of 2015, 3.5" 2HD 1.44 MB floppy disks are produced by Verbatim, TDK, EMTEC, Imation at the only Taiwanese factory.

Floppinet

The English name floppy disk owes its appearance to the informal term " Floppinet", Denoting the use of removable media (primarily floppy disks) to transfer files between computers. The prefix "-no" in an ironic form compares this method of transmitting information with a kind of computer network at a time when the use of a "real" computer network is impossible for some reason. The term "diskette networks" is also sometimes used.

Symbolism

The image of a three-inch floppy disk is still used in GUI applications as an icon for buttons and menu items. Save.

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Notes

Literature

• Voroisky F.S. Informatics. New systematized explanatory dictionary-reference book. - 3rd ed. - M .: FIZMATLIT, 2003. - 760 p. - (Introduction to modern information and telecommunication technologies in terms and facts). - ISBN 5-9221-0426-8.

Links

An excerpt characterizing the floppy disk

Princess Marya and Natasha, as always, met in the bedroom. They talked about what Pierre said. Princess Mary did not express her opinion about Pierre. Natasha didn't talk about him either.
“Well, goodbye, Marie,” said Natasha. - You know, I am often afraid that we do not talk about him (Prince Andrei), as if we are afraid to humiliate our feelings, and forget.
Princess Mary sighed heavily, and with that sigh she acknowledged the truth of Natasha's words; but in words she did not agree with her.
– Is it possible to forget? - she said.
- It was so good for me today to tell everything; and hard, and painful, and good. Very well, - said Natasha, - I'm sure that he definitely loved him. From that I told him… nothing that I told him? – suddenly blushing, she asked.
- Pierre? Oh no! How beautiful he is,” said Princess Mary.
“You know, Marie,” Natasha suddenly said with a playful smile, which Princess Mary had not seen on her face for a long time. - He became somehow clean, smooth, fresh; just from the bath, you understand? - morally from the bath. Truth?
“Yes,” said Princess Marya, “he won a lot.
- And a short frock coat, and cropped hair; for sure, well, for sure from the bathhouse ... dad, it happened ...
“I understand that he (Prince Andrei) did not love anyone as much as he did,” said Princess Mary.
- Yes, and he is special from him. They say that men are friendly when they are very special. It must be true. Doesn't he really look like him at all?
Yes, and wonderful.
“Well, goodbye,” Natasha answered. And the same playful smile, as if forgotten, remained on her face for a long time.

Pierre could not sleep for a long time that day; he walked up and down the room, now frowning, pondering something difficult, suddenly shrugging his shoulders and shuddering, now smiling happily.
He thought about Prince Andrei, about Natasha, about their love, and then he was jealous of her past, then he reproached, then he forgave himself for it. It was already six o'clock in the morning, and he kept walking around the room.
“Well, what to do. If you can't live without it! What to do! So it must be so,” he said to himself, and, hastily undressing, went to bed, happy and excited, but without doubts or indecisions.
“It is necessary, strange as it may seem, no matter how impossible this happiness is, everything must be done in order to be husband and wife with her,” he said to himself.
A few days before this, Pierre had appointed the day of his departure for Petersburg on Friday. When he woke up on Thursday, Savelich came to him for orders to pack things for the journey.
“How to Petersburg? What is Petersburg? Who is in Petersburg? – involuntarily, though to himself, he asked. “Yes, something long, long ago, even before this happened, for some reason I was going to go to Petersburg,” he recalled. - From what? I will go, maybe. What a kind, attentive, how he remembers everything! he thought, looking at Savelich's old face. And what a nice smile! he thought.
“Well, you still don’t want to be free, Savelich?” Pierre asked.
- Why do I need, Your Excellency, will? Under the late count, the kingdom of heaven, we lived and we don’t see any offense with you.
- Well, what about the children?
- And the children will live, your excellency: you can live for such gentlemen.
“Well, what about my heirs?” Pierre said. "Suddenly I'll get married ... It might happen," he added with an involuntary smile.
- And I dare to report: a good thing, Your Excellency.
“How easy he thinks,” thought Pierre. He doesn't know how scary it is, how dangerous it is. Too soon or too late… Scary!”
- How would you like to order? Would you like to go tomorrow? Savelich asked.
- Not; I will postpone a little. I'll tell you then. Excuse me for the trouble, ”said Pierre, and looking at Savelich’s smile, he thought:“ How strange, however, that he does not know that now there is no Petersburg and that first of all it is necessary that this be decided. However, he certainly knows, but only pretends. Talk to him? What does he think? thought Pierre. No, sometime later.
At breakfast, Pierre told the princess that he had been at Princess Mary's yesterday and found him there - can you imagine who? - Natalie Rostova.
The princess pretended that she did not see anything more unusual in this news than in the fact that Pierre saw Anna Semyonovna.
– Do you know her? Pierre asked.
“I saw the princess,” she answered. - I heard that she was married to the young Rostov. This would be very good for the Rostovs; They say they are completely broke.
- No, do you know Rostov?
“I only heard about this story then. Very sorry.
“No, she doesn’t understand or pretends to be,” thought Pierre. "Better not tell her either."
The princess also prepared provisions for Pierre's journey.
“How kind they all are,” thought Pierre, “that now, when it certainly couldn’t be more interesting for them, they are doing all this. And everything for me; that's what's amazing."
On the same day, a police chief came to Pierre with a proposal to send a trustee to the Faceted Chamber to receive the things that were now being distributed to the owners.
“This one too,” thought Pierre, looking into the face of the police chief, “what a glorious, handsome officer and how kind! Now he's dealing with such nonsense. And they say that he is not honest and uses. What nonsense! And yet, why shouldn't he use it? That's how he was brought up. And everyone does it. And such a pleasant, kind face, and smiles, looking at me.
Pierre went to dine with Princess Mary.
Driving through the streets between the conflagrations of houses, he marveled at the beauty of these ruins. Chimneys of houses, fallen off walls, picturesquely reminiscent of the Rhine and the Colosseum, stretched, hiding each other, through the burnt quarters. The cabbies and riders who met, the carpenters who cut the log cabins, the traders and shopkeepers, all with cheerful, beaming faces, looked at Pierre and said as if: “Ah, here he is! Let's see what comes out of it."
At the entrance to the house of Princess Mary, Pierre was doubtful about the fairness of the fact that he was here yesterday, saw Natasha and spoke with her. “Maybe I made it up. Maybe I'll go in and see no one." But before he had time to enter the room, as already in his whole being, by the instant deprivation of his freedom, he felt her presence. She was in the same black dress with soft folds and the same hairdo as yesterday, but she was completely different. If she had been like that yesterday, when he entered the room, he could not have failed to recognize her for a moment.
She was the same as he knew her almost as a child and then the bride of Prince Andrei. A cheerful, inquiring gleam shone in her eyes; there was an affectionate and strangely mischievous expression on his face.
Pierre dined and would have sat out all evening; but Princess Mary was on her way to Vespers, and Pierre left with them.
The next day, Pierre arrived early, dined and sat out the whole evening. Despite the fact that Princess Mary and Natasha were obviously glad to have a guest; despite the fact that all the interest in Pierre's life was now concentrated in this house, by evening they had talked everything over, and the conversation moved incessantly from one insignificant subject to another and was often interrupted. Pierre sat up so late that evening that Princess Mary and Natasha looked at each other, obviously expecting him to leave soon. Pierre saw this and could not leave. It became difficult for him, awkward, but he kept sitting, because he could not get up and leave.
Princess Mary, not foreseeing the end of this, was the first to get up and, complaining of a migraine, began to say goodbye.
- So you are going to Petersburg tomorrow? Oka said.
“No, I’m not going,” Pierre said hastily, with surprise and as if offended. - No, to Petersburg? Tomorrow; I just don't say goodbye. I’ll call for commissions, ”he said, standing in front of Princess Marya, blushing and not leaving.
Natasha gave him her hand and left. Princess Mary, on the contrary, instead of leaving, sank into an armchair and, with her radiant, deep gaze, looked sternly and attentively at Pierre. The weariness that she had obviously shown before was completely gone now. She sighed heavily and long, as if preparing herself for a long conversation.
All the embarrassment and awkwardness of Pierre, when Natasha was removed, instantly disappeared and was replaced by an excited animation. He quickly moved the chair very close to Princess Marya.
“Yes, I wanted to tell you,” he said, answering, as if in words, in her glance. “Princess, help me. What should I do? Can I hope? Princess, my friend, listen to me. I know everything. I know that I'm not worth it; I know it's impossible to talk about it now. But I want to be her brother. No, I don't want... I can't...
He stopped and rubbed his face and eyes with his hands.
“Well, here it is,” he continued, apparently making an effort on himself to speak coherently. I don't know since when I love her. But I have loved her alone, alone in my whole life, and I love her so much that I cannot imagine life without her. Now I do not dare to ask for her hand; but the thought that maybe she could be mine and that I would miss this opportunity ... opportunity ... is terrible. Tell me, can I hope? Tell me what should I do? Dear princess,” he said, after a pause and touching her hand, as she did not answer.
“I am thinking about what you told me,” Princess Mary answered. “I'll tell you what. You are right, what now to tell her about love ... - The princess stopped. She wanted to say: it is now impossible for her to talk about love; but she stopped, because for the third day she saw from the suddenly changed Natasha that not only Natasha would not be offended if Pierre expressed his love to her, but that she wanted only this.
“It’s impossible to tell her now,” Princess Marya said anyway.
“But what am I to do?
“Give it to me,” said Princess Mary. - I know…
Pierre looked into the eyes of Princess Mary.
“Well, well…” he said.
“I know that she loves ... she will love you,” Princess Mary corrected herself.
Before she had time to say these words, Pierre jumped up and, with a frightened face, grabbed Princess Mary by the hand.
- Why do you think? Do you think that I can hope? You think?!
“Yes, I think so,” said Princess Mary, smiling. - Write to your parents. And entrust me. I'll tell her when I can. I wish it. And my heart feels that it will be.
- No, it can't be! How happy I am! But it can't be... How happy I am! No, it can not be! - said Pierre, kissing the hands of Princess Mary.
- You go to St. Petersburg; it is better. I'll write to you, she said.
- To Petersburg? Drive? Okay, yes, let's go. But tomorrow I can come to you?
The next day, Pierre came to say goodbye. Natasha was less lively than in the old days; but on this day, sometimes looking into her eyes, Pierre felt that he was disappearing, that neither he nor she was anymore, but there was one feeling of happiness. “Really? No, it can’t be,” he said to himself at her every look, gesture, word that filled his soul with joy.
When, bidding her farewell, he took her thin, thin hand, he involuntarily held it a little longer in his.
“Is it possible that this hand, this face, these eyes, all this treasure of female charm, alien to me, will this all be forever mine, familiar, the same as I am for myself? No, It is Immpossible!.."
“Farewell, Count,” she said to him loudly. “I will be waiting for you very much,” she added in a whisper.
And these simple words, the look and facial expression that accompanied them, for two months, were the subject of Pierre's inexhaustible memories, explanations and happy dreams. “I will be waiting for you very much ... Yes, yes, as she said? Yes, I will be waiting for you. Ah, how happy I am! What is it, how happy I am!” Pierre said to himself.

In Pierre's soul now nothing similar happened to what happened in her in similar circumstances during his courtship with Helen.
He did not repeat, as then, with painful shame, the words he had spoken, he did not say to himself: “Ah, why didn’t I say this, and why, why did I say “je vous aime” then?” [I love you] Now, on the contrary, he repeated every word of hers, his own, in his imagination with all the details of her face, smile, and did not want to subtract or add anything: he only wanted to repeat. There was no doubt now whether what he had done was good or bad, there was no shadow now. Only one terrible doubt sometimes crossed his mind. Is it all in a dream? Was Princess Mary wrong? Am I too proud and arrogant? I believe; and suddenly, as it should happen, Princess Marya will tell her, and she will smile and answer: “How strange! He was right, wrong. Doesn't he know that he is a man, just a man, and I? .. I am completely different, higher.
Only this doubt often came to Pierre. He didn't make any plans either. It seemed to him so incredibly impending happiness that as soon as this happened, nothing could be further. Everything ended.
Joyful, unexpected madness, for which Pierre considered himself incapable, took possession of him. The whole meaning of life, not for him alone, but for the whole world, seemed to him to consist only in his love and in the possibility of her love for him. Sometimes all people seemed to him busy with only one thing - his future happiness. It sometimes seemed to him that they all rejoiced in the same way as he himself, and only tried to hide this joy, pretending to be occupied with other interests. In every word and movement he saw hints of his happiness. He often surprised people who met him with his significant, expressing secret consent, happy looks and smiles. But when he realized that people might not know about his happiness, he felt sorry for them with all his heart and felt a desire to somehow explain to them that everything they were doing was complete nonsense and trifles not worthy of attention.
When he was offered to serve, or when some general, state affairs and war were discussed, assuming that the happiness of all people depended on such or such an outcome of such and such an event, he listened with a meek, condoling smile and surprised the people who spoke to him with his strange remarks. But both those people who seemed to Pierre to understand the real meaning of life, that is, his feeling, and those unfortunate people who obviously did not understand this - all people in this period of time seemed to him in such a bright light of the feeling shining in him that without the slightest effort, he immediately, meeting with any person, saw in him everything that was good and worthy of love.
Considering the affairs and papers of his late wife, he had no feeling for her memory, except for pity that she did not know the happiness that he knew now. Prince Vasily, now especially proud of having received a new place and a star, seemed to him a touching, kind and pitiful old man.
Pierre often later recalled this time of happy madness. All the judgments that he made for himself about people and circumstances during this period of time remained forever true for him. Not only did he not subsequently renounce these views on people and things, but, on the contrary, in internal doubts and contradictions, he resorted to the view that he had at that time of madness, and this view always turned out to be correct.
“Perhaps,” he thought, “I seemed then strange and ridiculous; but then I was not as mad as I seemed. On the contrary, I was then smarter and more perceptive than ever, and I understood everything that is worth understanding in life, because ... I was happy.
Pierre's madness consisted in the fact that he did not, as before, wait for personal reasons, which he called the virtues of people, in order to love them, and love overflowed his heart, and he, loving people for no reason, found undoubted reasons for which it was worth loving their.

From that first evening, when Natasha, after Pierre's departure, with a joyfully mocking smile, told Princess Marya that he was definitely, well, exactly from the bath, and a frock coat, and a short haircut, from that moment something hidden and unknown to her, but irresistible woke up in Natasha's soul
Everything: face, gait, look, voice - everything suddenly changed in her. Unexpected for herself - the power of life, hopes for happiness surfaced and demanded satisfaction. From the first evening, Natasha seemed to have forgotten everything that had happened to her. Since then, she has never complained about her situation, has not said a single word about the past, and was no longer afraid to make cheerful plans for the future. She spoke little of Pierre, but when Princess Mary mentioned him, a long-extinct gleam lit up in her eyes and her lips puckered up in a strange smile.
The change that took place in Natasha surprised Princess Mary at first; but when she understood its meaning, this change upset her. “Is it possible that she loved her brother so little that she could forget him so soon,” thought Princess Mary, when she alone pondered the change that had taken place. But when she was with Natasha, she did not get angry with her and did not reproach her. The awakened power of life that seized Natasha was obviously so unstoppable, so unexpected for herself, that Princess Mary, in Natasha's presence, felt that she had no right to reproach her even in her soul.
Natasha surrendered herself to the new feeling with such fullness and sincerity that she did not try to hide the fact that she was now not sad, but joyful and cheerful.
When, after a nightly explanation with Pierre, Princess Mary returned to her room, Natasha met her on the threshold.
- He said? Yes? He said? she repeated. Both joyful and at the same time pathetic, asking for forgiveness for his joy, the expression stopped on Natasha's face.
“I wanted to listen at the door; but I knew what you would tell me.
No matter how understandable, no matter how touching was for Princess Marya the look with which Natasha looked at her; no matter how sorry she was to see her excitement; but Natasha's words in the first minute offended Princess Marya. She remembered her brother, his love.
“But what to do! she cannot do otherwise,” thought Princess Marya; and with a sad and somewhat stern face she conveyed to Natasha everything that Pierre had told her. On hearing that he was going to Petersburg, Natasha was amazed.
- To Petersburg? she repeated, as if not understanding. But, peering into the sad expression on Princess Mary's face, she guessed the reason for her sadness and suddenly burst into tears. “Marie,” she said, “teach me what to do.” I'm afraid to be stupid. What you say, I will do; teach me…
- You love him?
“Yes,” Natasha whispered.
- What are you crying about? I’m happy for you,” said Princess Marya, forgiving Natasha’s joy for those tears.
“It won't be anytime soon. Just think what happiness it will be when I will be his wife and you will marry Nicolas.
“Natasha, I asked you not to talk about it. We'll talk about you.
They were silent.
- But why go to Petersburg! - suddenly said Natasha, and she herself hastily answered herself: - No, no, it’s necessary ... Yes, Marie? So you need...

Seven years have passed since the 12th year. The agitated historical sea of ​​Europe has subsided to its shores. It seemed quiet; but the mysterious forces that move mankind (mysterious because the laws governing their movement are unknown to us) continued their action.
Despite the fact that the surface of the historical sea seemed motionless, humanity moved as continuously as the movement of time. Various groups of human clutches were formed and disintegrated; the reasons for the formation and disintegration of states, the movements of peoples were prepared.
The historical sea, unlike before, was directed by gusts from one coast to another: it seethed in the depths. Historical figures, not as before, were carried in waves from one coast to another; now they seemed to circle in one place. Historical figures, who previously at the head of the troops reflected the movement of the masses with the orders of wars, campaigns, battles, now reflected the seething movement with political and diplomatic considerations, laws, treatises ...
Historians call this activity of historical persons reaction.
Describing the activities of these historical figures, who, in their opinion, were the cause of what they call reaction, historians condemn them severely. All the famous people of that time, from Alexander and Napoleon to m me Stael, Photius, Schelling, Fichte, Chateaubriand, etc., are put before their strict judgment and are justified or condemned, according to whether they contributed to progress or reaction.