Lesson plan
Frequency modulation encoding
was typical of FM-based floppy drives of the early 1980s home computer era. Frequency modulation encoding, or simply FM, is a method of storing data that saw widespread use in early floppy disk drives and hard disk drives. The data is modified using differential Manchester encoding when written to allow clock recovery to address timing effects known as "jitter" seen on disk media. It was introduced on IBM mainframe drives and was almost universal among early minicomputer and microcomputer floppies. In the case of floppies, FM encoding allowed about 80 kB of data to be stored on a -inch disk. IBM began introducing the more efficient modified frequency modulation, or MFM, starting in 1970. They referred to this format as "double density", with the original FM retroactively becoming "single density". MFM was more difficult to implement and it was not until the early 1980s that low-cost all-in-one MFM floppy drive controllers like the WD1770 emerged. This led to the rapid demise of FM encoding in favor of MFM by the mid-1980s.
Article summary
was typical of FM-based floppy drives of the early 1980s home computer era. Frequency modulation encoding, or simply FM, is a method of storing data that saw widespread use in early floppy disk drives and hard disk drives. The data is modified using differential Manchester encoding when written to allow clock recovery to address timing effects known as "jitter" seen on disk media. It was introduced on IBM mainframe drives and was almost universal among early minicomputer and microcomputer floppies. In the case of floppies, FM encoding allowed about 80 kB of data to be stored on a -inch disk. IBM began introducing the more efficient modified frequency modulation, or MFM, starting in 1970. They referred to this format as "double density", with the original FM retroactively becoming "single density". MFM was more difficult to implement and it was not until the early 1980s that low-cost all-in-one MFM floppy drive controllers like the WD1770 emerged. This led to the rapid demise of FM encoding in favor of MFM by the mid-1980s.
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Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
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