Hand me that X-Acto Knife!

Double the storage capacity of any floppy disk with one well placed hole.

If you used floppy disk storage with your C64, one of the first hacking skills you probably learned was how to double the storage capacity of your floppies.  I was thrilled when I first learned that I could double the amount I could store on a 5-1/4" floppy (as they were valuable commodities to me back then) by simply notching the opposite side of the disk.

There were a few ways you could do this - with a knife, a hole puch, or even a "disk notching tool" that made its way into the market.  I simply used an X-Acto knife, as it was the least expensive for me.

To get my hand-cut notch properly aligned, I would put two floppies face-to-face and use the factory-made notch as a template and cut the notch on the floppy below.  It wasn't fancy, but it worked.

I remember doing this to an entire box of disks one time, later having my mother a little miffed about all of the "little black squares" littering the desk and carpet in my room.

Kids!  ;o)