Computer Storage Codexery

History of the floppy disk

Floppy disks were a universal data format from the 1970s into the 1990s.

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History of the floppy disk

Marcin Wichary · CC BY 2.0

IBM began developing the first floppy disk drive at its San Jose facility in 1967, and the 8-inch format was introduced to the market in 1971.[1] For roughly four decades, floppy disks were a widely used storage medium, though their usage started to drop off during the middle to late 1990s.[2]

Quick Facts

First introduced
1971 (8-inch format)

Facts from the source article.

How it changed

IBM's late-1960s decision to use RAM as a writeable control store created a need for an inexpensive read-only device to load microprograms at power-on.[3] IBM introduced the diskette commercially in 1971, and it first shipped as the control store load device of the 2835 Storage Control Unit.[4][5] The first commercially available read-write floppy disk drive was the Memorex 650 in 1972, which had a data capacity of 175 kB.[6][7] IBM's first read-write floppy disk drive, the 33FD, shipped in May 1973 as a component of the 3740 Data Entry System, designed to replace punched card data entry machines.[8]

What the maker and period sources say

The Memorex 650 Flexible Disc File OEM Manual from 1972 states the drive used a hard-sectored disk with 50 tracks and 8 sectors per track.[7] The Amdek Amdisk I required the 3-inch disk to be physically removed and flipped over for the computer to read the other side, just like a 5¼-inch disk in a Disk II drive.[9] That same 1978 article noted that a single floppy disk typically cost between $5 and $8.[10]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "History of the floppy disk" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "IBM100 - The Floppy Disk", www-03.ibm.com, March 7, 2012 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "History of the floppy disk" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Welsh, "Technical Innovation in American History: An Encyclopedia of Science and Technology", ABC-CLIO LLC, 2019, p. 198; Prisco, "Why the Floppy Disk Just Won't Die", Wired, 2023-03-06 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "History of the floppy disk" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "IBM's Early 360 and Early 370 Systems", MIT Press, 1991 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "History of the floppy disk" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "IBM Archives: 20th century disk storage chronology", www-03.ibm.com, January 23, 2003; A Japanese inventor, Yoshiro Nakamatsu, claims to have invented core floppy disk technology in 1952 and further claims to have later licensed 16 patents to IBM (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "History of the floppy disk" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "IBM Archives: IBM 2305 fixed head storage", www-03.ibm.com, January 23, 2003 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "History of the floppy disk" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Disc Storage", May 1972, p. 154, 160, 162 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "History of the floppy disk" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "650 Flexible Disc File OEM Manual", Memorex Corp., 1972 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "History of the floppy disk" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Oral History of Jack Harker, with Denis Mee", Computer History Museum, July 10, 2007, p. 69; "Oral History Panel on 8-inch Floppy Disk Drives", Computer History Museum, 2006, p. 9, 30, 31; "IBM Archives: IBM 3740", www-03.ibm.com, January 23, 2003 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  9. "Amdek Amdisk I", Tom Owad. facts only, no text reused. applefritter.com
  10. Wikipedia, "History of the floppy disk" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Bates, "The Floppy Disk Comes of Age", The New York Times, 10 December 1978 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article History of the floppy disk (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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