When one Diskette was enough

When I start college, back in late 80, I start using more often the PC. In Mexico there were little penetration form PC for an average citizen; most computers were in Companies or Universities. As I decided to study a computer science engineering, part of the homework we were to do requires to be created using a PC.

When I start, the common storage was 5 1/4 inches Diskettes, the available storage was 360KB. Initially those were single sided, but with a notch on one edge you could turn the diskette in the reader to make if double sided, we can naw stored 720KB. Later, diskette reader evolved to read both sides without flipping the floppy disk.

Some common thing was to store all your stuff in the same diskette:

• The Operative System (MS-DOS at that time).
• Word Processor, a common software was ChiWriter I also remember having Professional Write at the same time.
• Personal Files, sometimes you could have all homework from the year

Most of the computer had no hard drive and, consequently, no Operating System, that’s why we should carry on us.

A couple of years later, 3 1/2 inches diskettes appears and replace those big 5 1/4, those had more room for files and eventually replace them completely.

There were no concept of piracy in our minds, but we share programs among all of us to be in the edge of the technology at our reach.

Most of the common software those days had simple interfaces, but soon the graphical applications arrived.