EOTO - Floppy Discs
The floppy disk, was a technological innovation that came to light in 1967 although they did not become a typical consumer product until later on in the 70's. The original disks were 8 inches but a few years later they were shrunken down to slightly over 5 inches and could hold over a megabyte worth of storage. Venturing later into the 20th century, Sony put out the worlds first 3.5 inch floppy disk, and it became the popular model for the consumer world. The reasoning behind the term 'floppy' does in fact come from the disk's flexibility. Floppy disks were able to help people back up data, transfer files, and distribute software. Even though eventually, floppys were replaced by USB flash drives, zip drives, and optical drives, they played a huge role in the transformation of computers being used in solely the business world, to become a personal appliance in the homes. When zip drives first came to light, they were first marketed as 'high-density' floppy disks due to the immense amount of storage they were able to hold in comparison to the original floppy disk.
The floppy disk worked through the process of magnetization. The data was arranged circularly around the surface of the disk and once it was entered into the disk drive on the computer, the magnet head on the inside would write code either a 1 or 0 onto the disk, magnetizing certain spots to get the accurate read. The head has to move around the disk to locate the proper 'cylinder' or group of data that it's looking for. Then it begins the decoding process to retrieve that information for use. Even though this sounds like a lengthy process, the floppy is able to retrieve data off the drive in under 1 second.
Before the invention of the floppy disk, computers mere mostly used for work purposes, but now the personal computer was born. Not only did this new product line come about but so did an entire new industry; the software industry. Before, each company had to create their own data storage process but now a company could write programs to be placed on disks and entered into individual computer systems. Overall, the floppy disk did more than just innovate one industry, it transformed both the consumer world and the tech industry. Even though this invention is now considered obsolete and has long been forgotten since the innovation of flash drives, and in more recent times the Cloud, it definitely pushed technology onto the everyday person more.
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