1967: THE FLOPPY DISK

floppy disk: a flexible removable magnetic disk, typically encased in hard plastic, used for storing data.

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• The floppy disk drive was invented at IBM by Alan Shugart in 1967
• The first floppy drives used an 8-inch disk, which evolved into the 5.25-inch disk that was used on the first IBM Personal Computer in August 1981
• The 5.25-inch disk held 360 kilobytes compared to the 1.44 megabyte capacity of today's 3.5-inch diskette.

The 5.25-inch disks were called "floppy" because the diskette packaging was a very flexible plastic envelope

Today's 3.5-inch diskettes are packaged in a case

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• By the mid-1980s, the improved designs of the floppy disk led to the less-flexible, 3.5-inch, 1.44-megabyte capacity floppy disk in use today.
• By the mid-1990s, the 5.25-inch version had fallen out of popularity, because the diskette's recording surface could easily become contaminated by fingerprints through the open access area.

THAT'S IT-THE END