Finding Floppy Disk Labels
An amusing reminder this week of the march of progress. I need to write floppy disks from time to time in the VMM, generally creating installers from disk images or transferring data to/from really old Macs. From donations to the Museum I have a large box of used disks ready for reformatting – which works about 2/3 of the time – but a dwindling supply of floppy disk labels.
Went over to the huge Cambridge MicroCenter the other day to pick up some replacements. The only floppy disks in the store were a small sampling at the end of a single shelf amidst a huge row of recordable CDs, DVDs and other types of media. No blank labels. I went to the label aisle, nothing there. In a pinch I figured I could use Zip disk labels, very similar in size, but none of those available either. Finally I checked out the boxed paper aisle, where they have Avery and store-branded laserprinter labels.
Sitting there, forlorn, in the very upper left corner, was a single box of Avery 5196 White 3.5″ Diskette Labels. 9 labels/sheet, 630 labels total. The shinkwrap was torn, and there was a stack of orange markdown stickers piled on top of the originally labeled price. Total cost in August 2009: $1.63. With tax that works out to a cost of approximately 3/10 of a cent per label.
I paid in cash. Should now be stocked for a while…
I’m actually looking to recreate a vintage macOS 1.1 floppy disc to add a little flare to a build I’m doing. What I was hoping to find here was a printable version of the label for the discs. Alas, no luck. I have images of it, I might try to fix one up myself. Do you happen to know what color of disc the original software came on? Were they just white? Beige? Tan? I dunno. I can’t tell from the yellow light pics.
The original Mac system disks are beige / light cream in color, similar to the colors of the Mac and Apple gear of that time but a bit less yellow.