Floppy Disks Called Floppy Disks: Why?
Here’s why floppy disks were called floppy disks: The original disks were made with a soft plastic shell, such that they would easily bend, even under their own weight. They were a little bit floppy, in a physical sense. Later upgrades to the technology inherited the “floppy” nickname even though they were made with rigid plastic and weren’t literally floppy. So if you want to learn all about why floppy disks were known as floppy disks, then this article is for you. Let’s get right into it! What Is a Floppy Disk? (3 Devices) Hang on for a minute. How are we supposed to get into the history of the name of floppy disks if we aren’t even clear on what they are? Now, you might be clear on the concept of floppy disks. Maybe you’ve even used them before. But, if you ask a hundred people what a floppy disk is, you’re going to get a wide variety of answers. So, let’s clear that up first, and then we can get into the name. The truth is that the term “floppy disk” is applied to a few different devices. They’re all similar in physical appearance, but they aren’t all the same thing. To fully explain, I’ll separate each “floppy disk” into its own section and then cover what it is and how it works. #1 The Original Floppy Disk The original floppy disk is also known as the 5.25-inch data storage disk. This is a magnetic storage device, and it was built in a rectangular shape. The very first version was invented by Alan Shugart. He was working for IBM, and in 1967, he debuted this device. It was capable of holding 360 kilobytes. What made this device so novel is that you could easily hold it in your hand and use it to transfer information from one computer to another. Keeping in mind that this was long before the