Why floppy disk called floppy

Difference between Hard Disk and Floppy Disk :. Floppies cannot store much at all A CD will hold more than floppies. What replaced floppy disks? Do computers still use floppy disks? Are floppy disks floppy? How long do floppy disks last? Are floppy disks secure? Is there any use for old floppy disks? How much does a floppy disc cost? Does Walmart sell floppy disks? Are 3. Why are floppy disks called floppy disks? Why floppy disk are not used nowadays? What size were floppy disks? What do floppy disks do?

What are the weaknesses of a floppy disc? What was before floppy disc? Who invented floppy disc? Does NASA still use floppy disks? Why are floppy disks not used today? What are the disadvantages of a floppy disk? What can a floppy disk be used for? What are the pros and cons of using floppy disk? The 5. In the end this article from IBM suggests the term originates from the flexibility of the medium, but it is never stated outright.

Dalziel, the lead inventor of the floppy disk drive. The first floppies were 8-inch disks that were bare, but they got dirty easily, so the team packaged them in slim but durable envelopes equipped with an innovative dust-wiping element, making it possible to handle and store them easily.

Magnetic disks were traditionally made of cast aluminum, and were very hard and rigid the same as the "hard drives" that one can still buy today, but much much larger.

Think of circular saw blades without teeth. In contrast, floppy disks were made of very thin plastic, which if held at the edge would bend under their own weight. For anyone familiar with standard hard drive disks, taking one out of its protective case revealed something so different from the precision machined aluminum platters, that they could hardly call them anything but "floppy".

Well, "flimsy" might have worked too, but that would also have implied unreliability. We pulled one apart to see what it was like inside when they first came out. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group.

Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Ask Question. Asked 5 years, 4 months ago. Active 4 months ago. Viewed 5k times. Improve this question. Community Bot 1. Janus Bahs: If you describe something as "bendy, flexible", that would usually imply the flexibility was desirable , whereas "floppy" tends to be associated with things that have insufficient rigidity to do whatever they need to do without some kind of support.

Why was it called a floppy disk? Because its recording medium is a disk of oxide-coated mylar, unlike the rigid aluminum disks and drums which had been used in previous storage devices. Floppy sounds better than flexible. And it pluralizes nicely; floppies was way better than flexibles. In South Africa, 8" and 5" disks are called "floppy". I'm not sure that that name is any less undesirable at least in other cultures. Show 17 more comments.