Introduction:

A long time ago (relatively, for someone that's 21 years of age, at least), in the same galaxy that we currently exist, the bright engineering minds of men created a very special device known as the computer. And as most of us know, the computer is an extremely versatile machine that can serve a whole bunch of puposes, ranging from performing calculations, to word processing, to multimedia and entertainment, and the list continues (depending on what kind of software you have for your computer). It's truly amazing when you consider all the different kinds of things that computers can do nowadays. But, there was a time, when computers weren't so godly. More specifically, the potential of a computer's usefuless was actually limited by lacking in data transfer capabilities. There was a time when CD-ROM drives and DVD-ROM drives weren't the standard for data storage and transfer. "Floppy disks" and a "floppy drives" were utilized in the late 90's. And as pathetic as they seem to be nowadays, they were important to the development of our modern memory storage devices. Actually, it stands to make sense that most obselete technology plays an important role in human history because it paves the way for better technology.

Purpose:

It seems that, in order for a computer to be truly useful, it should have some kind of memory or storage. And to further indulge in that luxury, it would be even nicer if it were possible to store data and have a method for transfering such data from one computer to another computer. Here's where a floppy disk would come in handy.

8-inch floppy disk drive (photograph by: KENPEI)

5-inch floppy disk (photograph by: Andreas Frank)

5-inch floppy disk drive (photograph by: Tomasz Sienicki)

3.5-inch floppy disk (photograph by: Andreas Frank)

3.5-inch floppy disk drive (photograph by: unknown)

Let's now take a moment and explain how the floppy disk drive actually works. Let me begin by saying that the entirety of this explanation is a paraphrase from http://www.howstuffworks.com. These following descriptions most closely match the schematics a 3.5-inch floppy disk drive.

Inside all the floppy disks, is a magnetic disk that has numerous concentric rings on it. Each ring is called a track, and each ring is cut up like a pie, and each "piece of pie" is called a sector.

In the floppy disk drive, there reside heads that read and write the information on the disk. They go to work on both sides of the diskette. The same head that reads the disk, is also used to write on the disk. a second head, that's wider than the first head, is used to erase a track before the first head writes on it.

There's a drive motor that grips the center of disk and spins it around at around 360 rotations per minute.

A stepper motor is the motor that controls the motion of the read/write head. This motor is very precise, since the position for the read/write head has to be at just the right location to interact with the small sectors on the disk.

Of course, there is a mechanical system of levers that control the opening of the metallic slide on the 3.5-inch diskette and also work to engage and disengage it. With the mechanics also comes the electronic circuit board that handles the logic instructions for the all the different mechanical moving components in the drive, like the motor and the head activation.

Historical Significance:

First, let's run off some basics about simple facts about the floopy disk:

Inventor: David Noble (reference #: 1)
Year Invented: 1969 (reference #: 1)
Types: 8-inch, 5.25-inch, and 3.5-inch compact

There are certainly more types of floppy disks out there, but these three are probably the most well-known amongst them. The other types of floppies (most likely characterized by their physical dimensions, like the 2-inch, 3-inch, 4-inch, and 12-inch , were not as popularized). I think it's worthy to mention, that some people actually get the 3.5-inch compact floppy confused with a "hard disk". While it is true that the 3.5-inch compact was not physically "floppy", like a rubber ducky, it's still considered a floppy disk. "Hard disk" refers to the disk inside the hard drive of a computer. Admittedly, when I was in 5th grade, I was also the victim of such confusion.

During the 1960's, the IBM corporation was interested in finding new ways to load up microcode onto their System/370 mainframe computers. In order to remedy this problem, the 8-inch floppy was developed. But before they used the 8-inch memory, the job was done by large tape drives. A man named David Noble was the pioneer behind this solution. The code name for this project was "Minnow". Though, a Japanese man named Yoshiro Nakamatsu claims to have preceded Noble's 8-inch memory disk with one of his own (reference #: 1).

In 1976, however, two men by the names of Jim Adkisson and Don Massaro were not happy with an 8-inch floppy disk. For them, the size of this disk was simply too large to be practical in a desk environment. They birthed the 5.25-inch floppy disk, which also had an increased capacity of 110 KB of memory. The drive for this computer was also less expensive than the drive for the 8-inch floppy. This innovative creation was very popular after it was released, and towards the end of the 70's, there were multiple manufacturing companies that would complete with each other to build drives for this disk.

Many years later, Sony developed a 3.5-inch floppy disk for use, that was based on a similar design from a different company. The biggest problem for this new disk, was the already large market share that the 5.25-inch disks held at the time. It was actually Apple Computer that was responsible for the dramatic change in switching from the 5.25-inch floppy to the 3.5-inch floppy. One could say that Apple Computer helped to popularize this new design. By the end of the 1980's the 3.5-inch domainated the market against their 5.25-inch predecessor. The 3.5-inch floppy was unique from the old disks, in that it had a metallic slide that could protect the magnetic disk inside from contact with foreign surfaces. Though, I must say that this slide wasn't the most robust piece of equipment. If it was bent out of shape, the disk would not work properly, and at times it could act as a hook and "hook into the inside of the drive", making it very difficult to remove from the drive.

Lifespan:

Fortunately for us, like all new technology, it doesn't last that long! That's a good thing, because it means that new better technology is coming out to make our lives easier! The floppy disk is no exception. This time-weathered accessory only lasted until about the mid-to-late 90's. At that point, it seemed that CD-writing drives would replace the floppy drives on the computers. A 700 MB CD is like an angry gorilla compared to the sad little puppy, that is the 1.4 MB 3-inch compact floppy. In the early 21st century, large quantities of flash memory are available as a convenient mobile memory storage alternative. Basically, it's pretty safe to say that floppy disks are obselete. I was actually shopping around a Target Store the other day, and they were selling 32 MB USB flash drives for a couple bucks. My computer doesn't even have a floppy disk drive. I bought my computer from Dell, and at the time that I had purchased it, the floppy disk drive wasn't even standard for the computer, it was actually an accessory that was a $50 add-on.

Links/References:

1. Wikipedia.org - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_Disk

2. howstuffworks.com - http://www.howstuffworks.com/floppy-disk-drive.htm

3. Who Drove The First Floppy Drive - http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa110198.htm

4. Floppy Disk Drive Primer - http://www.accurite.com/FloppyPrimer.html

5. Floppy Disk Drive Drives - http://www.infoweblinks.com/content/floppydiskdrives.htm