Winn L. Rosch Hardware Bible, Sixth Edition

Floppy Disks

Since the first computer booted up, the floppy disk has been a blessing and a curse, subject of the same old saying usually reserved for kids, spouses, and governments: “You can't live with them, and you can't live without them.” They were the first storage system for personal computers, and they've remained relatively unchanged ever since. Microprocessors might be 10,000 times faster than they used to be. Hard disks might hold 10,000 times more bytes. But today's basic floppy disk hardly holds about the same amount of data as the very first. Although the floppy disk has shrunk from eight inches to three-and-a-half and grown a hard turtle-like shell, the basic disk still holds little more than a megabyte, truly puny in a world of ...