Abstract: A dual magnetic head having a first magnetic core for reading and writing very high track density floppy disks and a second magnetic core for reading and writing conventional track density floppy disks. Neither the first nor the second magnetic cores require the trim erase elements associated with prior art magnetic cores for use with floppy disks. When writing on conventional track density floppy disks, separation between data tracks is achieved by erasing a circular region on a first rotation of the floppy disk, erasing a second region, separated from the first region by a small gap, on a second rotation of the floppy disk, and writing data during a third rotation of the floppy disk centered about the small gap. With very high density floppy disks, data is written directly between optical servo tracks on the floppy disk without use of the two erase steps.

Abstract: A diskette comprising a jacket, a liner material disposed within said jacket, a flat circular media having a magnetic coating on both sides disposed within said liner material, a hub attached at the center of said media, a plurality of servo grooves on at least one of said sides of said media that have stitched patterns that will alternate on-and-off at twenty kilohertz in the presence of a constant, unmodulated light source. The diskette is magnetically formatted with reference and data tracks recorded in such a way that extremely accurate position determinations can be made by looking at the analog amplitude of the detected tracks and comparing them at different head positions.

Abstract: A diskette comprising a jacket, a liner material disposed within said jacket, a flat circular media having a magnetic coating on both sides disposed within said liner material, a hub attached at the center of said media, a plurality of servo grooves on at least one of said sides of said media that have stitched patterns that will alternate on-and-off at twenty kilohertz in the presence of a constant, unmodulated light source. The diskette is magnetically formatted with reference and data tracks recorded in such a way that extremely accurate position determinations can be made by looking at the analog amplitude of the detected tracks and comparing them at different head positions.

Abstract: A disk data storage subsystem includes a head and disk assembly. A plurality of sectors in data tracks include a servo portion containing a prerecorded pattern of a plurality of repeating, time staggered, non-phase-coherent bursts, each burst having a predetermined integral fraction radial offset relative to the other bursts.

Abstract: A high performance, low cost rotating disk data storage subsystem includes a head and disk assembly. A plurality of sectors in data tracks include a servo portion containing a prerecorded pattern of a plurality of repeating, time staggered, non-phase-coherent bursts, each burst having a predetermined integral fraction radial offset relative to the other bursts and having a constant frequency preamble field followed by a unique value field related to its burst spatial location.