PhillipM - We did the same to use the other side, too. Some single sided disks worked and some didn't, and it was always related to the manufacturer, because some disks were coated the same on both sides, and other manufacturers were more careful about giving away something for nothing.
I still have a couple of Timex/Sinclairs (haven't seen them for several years though). A friend of mine used one to run his electronic lab for a number of years, as it had capabilities that most of us never see. It used the same chip as the Osbornes, the Z80 (similar to the Intel 8080). They came with 2k of RAM, and could be epanded with an add-on, up to (I think I remember correctly) 32k (WOW!!!). In that 2k of RAM it held a BASIC Interpreter, and could hold a full 8 1/2 X 11 page of text.
For those who didn't know, the Osborne I had 64k of RAM. The later Osborne (I can't remember its name now) had 128k of RAM by using a mirrored image, most Osborne I users that I knew shied away from them, but were still in awe of all that available RAM.
One of my Osborne I's was a BBS for several years, with a 10 MB hard drive that never seemed to run out of storage space. Those were the early days of the Internet.
Gyrene OFC
semper fi
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