Ed Artifact
Anything but a flop: Before the Cloud, there was the floppy disk
BY NICOLE MEHLMAN-DAVIDOW
Storing data and documents safely has been a must since the invention of the computer. Before the Cloud, there was the flash drive, and well before that, there was the floppy disk. Do not let its silly name fool you; this device was the best way to transfer data long before its more compact and convenient successors.
According to howstuffworks.com, the floppy disk was invented by Alan Shugart, who worked at IBM, in 1967. The disks were dubbed “floppy” because the packaging was a flexible plastic envelope. The disk is made from a thin piece of plastic coated with a magnetic material on both sides. Its purpose is to place data on that circular piece of metal-coated plastic. Originally the floppy disk measured eight inches, and it gradually shrank as its popularity grew.
More than five billion floppy disks were sold annually at their peak in the mid-1990s, according to ibm.com. Software companies were at the forefront of using floppy disks because they could write programs, put them on the disks and sell them. Users were no longer tied to a single computer because they could transfer data easily between machines.
The floppy disk began to phase out of use as data grew in size and scope. It has since been replaced by other data-storage methods that are more compact and have a greater capacity. Along came CDs, then USB flash drives and later memory cards, and as of late, Cloud storage.
The use of the floppy disk may have gradually tapered off, but it is still highly symbolic, representing the early days of computing.