Yep. An ordinary round hole punch worked, but you could also get a purpose built punch that made a nice rectangular notch, had a guide to get the position just right, and had more leverage making it easier to punch through the thick jacket. "Dual sided" floppies (with two factory cut notches) cost enough extra that the tool paid for itself pretty quickly, IIRC.
Of course, the floppy manufacturers warned that the cheaper single sided floppies had only been tested on the front side, and might have defects on the back. But I don't remember that ever being a real problem.
>Of course, the floppy manufacturers warned that the cheaper single sided floppies had only been tested on the front side, and might have defects on the back. But I don't remember that ever being a real problem.
I remember someone telling me that the floppy manufacturers were obviously lying, because C=64 computers normally wrote on one side (back, I think), while Apple ][ series computers wrote on the other side, so the disks had to be tested on both sides anyway so they could be used in either computer.
1. Cover the write protect notch on a 5 1/4” floppy with a sticker to enable writing.
2. Melt an extra hole in a 3.5” floppy with a cheap soldering iron to double its capacity to the 1.44MB that later became the standard.