floppies

Floppies, commonly known as floppy disks, were a type of flexible magnetic data storage medium that became widely used in the late 20th century. Introduced in the 1970s, they were a significant advancement over earlier rigid disk storage, offering portability and ease of use for personal computers. Floppies were made of a thin, flexible magnetic disk encased in a square or rectangular plastic shell with a protective cover, allowing them to be inserted and removed from disk drives.

The most common sizes were 5.25 inches and 3.5 inches, with capacities ranging from 80 kilobytes to 1.44 megabytes. The 3.5-inch floppy, introduced in 1986, became the standard due to its higher capacity, durability, and smaller size. Floppies were widely used for software distribution, data backup, and file transfer before being largely replaced by USB flash drives and optical discs in the early 2000s.

Floppy disks stored data magnetically on the disk surface, which was coated with iron oxide particles. Data was read and written by a read/write head that moved across the disk as it spun. The disks required careful handling to avoid damage from dust, moisture, or bending, as this could corrupt stored data or render the disk unusable.

In addition to personal computers, floppies were used in various other devices, including game consoles like the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Sega Master System, where they served as a medium for game cartridges. Despite their eventual decline, floppies played a crucial role in the development of early computing and remain a nostalgic symbol of the digital age’s formative years.