💾 The genius engineering of the 3½ inch floppy disk 💾

i know most people haven't used one of these  in years but have you ever stopped to think   of what a brilliant piece of engineering  the three and a half inch floppy disk is it was introduced by sony in 1982 and remained in  common use for at least two decades beyond that   and even today its unmistakable shape lives  on as the universal icon for saving a document the first floppy disks were introduced in  the early 1970s and were eight inches but   they were not commonly used with personal  computers due to their high cost and   bulky size and then when the five and a  quarter inch floppy disk was introduced   they called it the mini floppy disk so the next  logical step for the three and a half inch disk   was to call it the micro floppy disk or  some brands just called it a micro disk but the big blue giant of computing  ibm referred to them as diskettes so   the majority of the industry followed ibm's lead  and used that terminology as well but in everyday   language most people call them floppy disks so  you'll see the two terms used interchangeably and if you ever wondered how to say double density  diskettes in french it's double density diskettes   yeah thanks for that 3m and back in the '80s and '90s some people  mistakenly referred to these as hard disks   because they might have heard the term hard  disk but they probably didn't really know   what it meant so they figured if this is a  floppy disk then this must be a hard disk and when three and a half inch disks were  introduced they were really a godsend for   novice users because they solved a lot of problems  that people had with five and a quarter inch   floppy disks even something as simple as how  to remove the disk from its protective envelope "and the instructions in the  book said take a diskette   from its protective envelope now the protective  envelope stayed in the box as it often does   and all he had in his hands was this and he  read the paragraph again remove the diskette from its protective envelope so he did now he didn't do it quite as dramatically as  that you're going to see it on the videotape   but it is i went to poughkeepsie with  this story and they said oh yeah you   know we've been people been tearing  these things up for years! years!" or putting the floppy disk in the drive there's  eight possible ways to put one of these in a drive   but only one of them is going to work there's  nothing to stop you from putting it in backwards   or putting in sideways whereas  with a three and a half inch disk   you can try putting it in upside down  and backwards but only goes in part way   you can try putting in sideways  it doesn't even fit upside down   that way doesn't fit backwards like that doesn't  fit the only way that works is the way that works that's because this little angled off corner  and these notches in the back aren't just there   for decoration they are what ensures that you  can only put it in the drive the correct way   and to help you not make that mistake  of putting in the disk the wrong way   even has this helpful little arrow  indicating the proper orientation three and a half inch diskettes also did away  with the need to close a latch or door when   inserting the disk you just pop in the disk and  it automatically locks into place and when you   want to remove it again you don't need to open  the latch and pull it out you just push a button   and it pops out and if you were lucky enough  to own a macintosh you had automatic eject and with five and a quarter inch floppy disks  people will get their greasy fingers on the   open area here and their data would  be ruined they would crease the disc   and their data was ruined they would staple it  to a piece of paper and their data was ruined   in fact even just pressing too hard when  writing on the label with a ballpoint pen   or pencil or attaching a paper clip can  damage a five and a quarter inch diskette the hard plastic shell and protective shutter  makes the three and a half inch diskette   impervious to that kind of damage although the  very early three and a half inch diskettes did   not have an automatic shutter you had to slide it  open and closed manually this is a slightly later   one which can work in either a manual shutter  or automatic shutter drive it says auto shutter   and is spring loaded just like later ones but if  you hold it open a little bit beyond its normal   position it stays open and then you notice it  says pinch here you pinch it and it snaps shut and speaking of which did you know that the first   computer in north america to use  the three and a half inch diskette   was not the apple macintosh it was actually  the hp 150 touchscreen computer in 1983 and until sometime in the late 1980s most three  and a half inch diskettes came in these clear   plastic pockets i guess these were supposed to  help protect the disks but most people would   just take this off and throw it away so what  good is it that's why they got rid of those another sign of cost cutting came about  a decade later when many diskettes   switched from using metal  shutters to plastic shutters   they still work perfectly fine they  just feel a bit cheaper and lighter another advantage of three and a half inch  diskettes is when you want to write protect your   data with five and a quarter inch discs they came  with this notch here which indicated it was okay   to write to the disk so when you wanted to write  protect it you had to use these stick on labels   and cover up the notch and sometimes these  would get stuck and they would get ripped   off inside the drive when you go to remove  the disk it would get caught in the mechanism with three and a half inch diskettes the write  protect has a built-in sliding tab you leave it   up like this to enable writing to the disk or  you can slide it down to write protect the disk   and commercially pre-recorded software  would often come without that sliding tab   so it was permanently write protected this cutout on the other side of the disk also  serves a purpose and that is to automatically tell   the drive which capacity of disk you have inserted  with a high density disk you'll have this cutout   here well with a double density disk it will not  whereas with five and a quarter inch floppy disks   there is no way for the computer to tell  the difference between a double density disk   and a high density disk it has to trust  the user to make the correct choice there were also 2.88 megabyte extended density   three and a half inch disks but these were never  widely used because they were very expensive   very few computers supported them mostly just  a few ibm ps/2s and by the time people needed   this kind of capacity they were moving on  to things like zip disks and recordable cds   but you can see once again this has a special  notch in the different position than a normal   high density disk so that way the computer  can tell the difference between the two and the final evolution of the three and a  half inch diskette which most people never used   was the 120 megabyte superdisk also known as ls120  these were designed to be backwards compatible   with standard three and a half inch  diskettes so if you had a drive   that supported these disks it could also  read regular three and a half inch disks you can see the physical form  factor is basically identical   except the shutter design is a little bit  more fancy these use laser servo technology   and they store 120 megabytes they later came out  with a 240 megabyte version although those were   not as popular but you can see these carried  over many of the same physical design features   as normal three and a half inch diskettes even  including the sliding built-in write protect tab but as much as i think three and a  half inch diskettes were a masterpiece   of design and engineering they do have  some drawbacks one is a rather silly one   and that is they could never seem to agree  which way to put the label either with the   label at the top because that's the way  five and a quarter inch disks always did it   and because it makes it easier to see the label  when you're flipping through a box of disks   or with the label at the bottom because  that's the way you put the disk into the drive and a more serious problem is that  if you got a little too rambunctious   when removing one of these from the drive it was  not uncommon for it to rip off the metal shutter   the disk will still work fine it will just  lose that physical protection of its surface   and it's not uncommon if you have a drive  that gets jammed and won't let you put in   the disk all the way to open it up  and find one of these lodged inside it is actually possible to reinstall one of  these shutters or one taken from a donor disk   although it takes a level of skill  and patience that i don't have but since this disk is already  ruined let's open it up   and see what's inside not as easy as  as with a five and a quarter inch disk   but there you can see there's the floppy  disk inside and it actually has this felt   material to help keep the disk clean so that's  what's inside a three and a half inch diskette so the next time you see a three and a  half inch diskette hopefully you'll stop   and take a moment to think about what a  work of genius these things really are

Channel: VWestlife

Views: 512,428

Keywords: floppy, disk, diskette, 3.5, 3.5, 3-1/2, 3-1/2, 3 1/2, 3 1/2, inch, drive, design, physical, engineering, shutter, double, high, density, 1.44, mb, 1.44mb, 1.44 mb, 720k, 720, kb, 720kb, 720 kb, 720 k, data, vintage, computer, pc, mac, macintosh, amiga, atari, hp, 150, touch screen, 1983, 5-1/4, 5-1/4, 5 1/4, 5 1/4, 360k, 360 k, 360 kb, 360kb, 1.2m, 1.2 m, 1.2mb, 1.2 mb, write protect, notch, 2.88, 2.88 mb, 2.88mb, ls120, superdisk, ls240, zip, iomega

Id: tJCMzdzh4Tw

Length: 10min 2sec (602 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 07 2022