About 50 years ago, the first floppy disks in 8-inch format. They consisted of a magnetizable disk protected in a plastic sleeve and were flexible and bendable. Floppy – a term that became common in the decades that followed for the data storage device.
The floppy disk became the dominant storage medium before it was gradually replaced by others. But the floppy disk has not disappeared completely: there are still some institutions and companies that use them.
Before we get to the why, let’s take a step back: It was not at all certain that the floppy disk would be so successful. From the beginning, it was more practical than the large tapes and removable disks that had previously replaced punch cards. But at the beginning, they were also quite limited: only 80 KBytes fit on the first disks.
A few years later, a manufacturer formerly Personal Computer the company Shugart Associates with the development of a more compact version of the floppy disk. Rumor has it that the engineers agreed on the physical dimensions of the new medium during a meal – and used a cocktail napkin as a size template.
The parties argued this story later declined and claimed that the size was simply due to the fact that floppy disks with this form factor did not fit in trouser or shirt pockets, which they considered important for data security reasons.
As the first computer with the Shugart SA-400 Minifloppy In 1977 the Wang 2200 PCS-II on the market.
The storage medium of the 1980s
The minifloppy began its triumph as the dominant removable storage medium in the 1980s, when almost all computer manufacturers had such drives in their range. Their production was outsourced to Matsushita Communications Inc. in Japan, which sold billions of devices worldwide until the 1990s.
The 3.5-inch diskette was a more robust and compact variant in the early 1980s. Since it also offered more storage space after several revisions, it was able to replace the floppy disk as the most popular medium by 1988 at the latest.
The history of floppy disks should have ended with the advent of USB removable media, Zip drives and CDs in the 2000s. Sony stopped producing the storage media in 2011.
However, there are some institutions and companies that are resisting progress for various reasons and that cannot even switch to a simple replacement such as floppy emulators with a USB connection.