Historical Computer Engineering - Floppy Disks
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Floppy Disks

Areas of Application


The 3,5 inch disk

picture of a 3,5 inch drive
Exhibit number 104
3,5 inch drive
YD 701-6031

The 3,5 Inch Floppy Disk had a difficult start, because of the competition to the 5,25 Inch floppy disk which was widely spread at that time. The smaller size of the floppy disk just began to spread more when in 1982 a group of producing companies agreed to that size as the new standard one. The first computer built with a 3,5 inch floppy disk drive was made by Sony, followed by the bigger companies Apple (in 1984 for the Macintosh), Atari (in 1985 for the ST-series) and Commodore (1985 for the Amiga system). This development raised the numbers of sold floppy disks in 3,5 inch format and in the year of 1988 they finally outsold the bigger 5,25 inch format. As most of you know the disk floppy is not that present anymore. As Apple was one of the first companies to use the 3,5 inch floppy for its computers, it was also the first company to get rid of it. From the year 1998 on, Apple did not build in the drives anymore. The real end of the floppy disk followed in the year of 2003, when Dell also stopped building the drives in their computer as they realized that the USB-Stick is going to be the new transportable storage medium for the future. But still it is a matter of fact that the floppy disks did not die completely. In the year of 2009 there were still 50.000.000 floppy disks sold and there are also still functions for them. For example in Windows, up to the current version of Windows 7, there is still some function for them in the user section, where you can create a floppy that is able to create a new password in case that you forgot your current one.