Floppy disk
| |
| Floppy disk | |
| Developer | Apple (5¼-inch FileWare) IBM (8-inch) Matsushita (3-inch Compact Floppy Disk) Mitsumi (2⅘-inch Quick Disk) Shugart Associates (5¼-inch) Sony (3½-inch, 2-inch Video Floppy) Zenith (2-inch LT-1) |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Various |
| Systems | Various |
| Released | 8-inch: 1967 5¼-inch: September 1976 3½-inch: 1981 5¼-inch FileWare: January 19, 1983 2⅘-inch Quick Disk: 1985 3-inch Compact Floppy Disk: May 1985 2-inch Video Floppy: 1987 2-inch LT-1: 1989 |
| Added to Museum | 5¼-inch: December 25, 1980 3½-inch: December 25, 1989 |
A Floppy disk, floppy, disk, or diskette, is a magnetic storage format.
8-inch floppy
In 1967, IBM released the 8-inch floppy disk for use with their System/370 mainframe computers.
5¼-inch minifloppy
Shugart Associates released the 5¼-inch minifloppy in September 1976. These were developed to create a smaller disk to replace the 8-inch floppies. The 5¼-inch minifloppy became an industry standard, and were used in many different computer architectures.
3½-inch floppy
Sony released the 3½-inch floppy in 1981. This format had a hard plastic case that protected the magnetic disk. These were created to replace the 5¼-inch minifloppy by creating a smaller disk that could not be easily bent like previous formats.
5¼-inch FileWare
On January 19, 1983, Apple released the proprietary 5¼-inch FileWare, code-named "Twiggy", for use in their Lisa computer. The FileWare format is similar to the standard 5¼-inch minifloppy, however, it has additional write windows on the top of the disk, and the label runs down the side.
2⅘-inch Quick Disk
Mitsumi released the 2⅘-inch quick disk in 1985. It was used in the Family Computer Disk System, released in Japan by Nintendo in 1986.
3-inch CF-2/Compact Floppy Disk
In May 1985, a consortium of companies led by Matsushita released the 3-inch Compact Floppy Disk, or CF-2. It was used by Amstrad in the Amstrad CPC, Amstrad PCW, and ZX Spectrum +3 computers, by Sega in the Super Control Station SF-7000 add-on for the SC-3000 computer, by Tatung in the Tatung Einstein computer, by Timex in their FDD drives and in the Timex FDD3000 computer.
2-inch Video Floppy
In 1981, Sony unveiled the Mavipak, a 2-inch magnetic floppy disk that would store analog still video recordings. It was intended for its Mavica camera, however the Mavica remained as various prototypes until the Mavica MVC-A7AF was released in 1987. It used the Mavipak disk format, then known as the Video Floppy. It was also used by other companies in their analog still-video cameras, as well as in various medical fields and by television stations.
2-inch LT-1
In 1989, Zenith released the proprietary 2-inch LT-1 floppy disk, for use in the Zenith Minisport laptop computer.
