Data Formats: Floppy Disks & CDs

As with audio-visual media, computer data eventually transitioned to magnetic data storage, first with reels of linear tape and later with spinning disks. Most recognizable today as the “save button” icon, floppy disks were first introduced in 1971 by IBM. These disks were 8-inches and enclosed in flexible plastic, giving them their signature “floppy” attribute. As the technology advanced these disks shrunk down to 5 1⁄4-inch in 1976. The 3 1⁄2-inch floppy disk, with a more rigid plastic shell, was introduced in 1983. The original 8-inch floppy disk stored 242,944 bytes of data while the 3 1⁄2-inch version could store 1.44 megabytes. In 1995, the Iomega Corporation launched the Zip disk which stored up to 100MBs of data and required a proprietary drive. This category of “superfloppy” external storage devices lasted into the early 2000s, when CDs and optical disks replaced magnetic media for external storage.