Floppy Disk

            Computers and computer technology have come a long way since the first home computers were invented in the early 70's. Over the past 30 years, computers and their accessories have all become compact. One item that has come a long way since its invention in 1971 is the memory disk, or floppy disk as it is now called. The floppy disk was first born as an 8- plastic disk with very little memory but over time slowly got smaller. It shrunk from 8- to 5 ¼- to 3 ½- and even to 3- but the 3- disk was discontinued. The floppy disks also increased the amount of saveable memory as they got smaller. They even became more versatile, which was appealing for computer customers in search of portable storage devices. The floppy disk forever changed the way computers were used and the way people saw computers. They made everyday computer tasks much easier for us. The floppy disk was revolutionary.
             IBM introduced the very first floppy disk in 1971. This "memory disk- as it was called at that time, was an 8- plastic disk coated with magnetic iron oxide; Data was written to read from the disk's surface. The 8- plastic floppy disk was considered to be revolutionary during its time because not only was it considered to be a nice small size, but you could pretty much take it anywhere with you and put it in another computer to read the same data stored on that disk. The very large but very useful 8- floppy was just the start of what was to come within the next 20 years.
             The floppy disk was invented by IBM engineers led by none other than Alan Shugart. The first floppy disks his team created were just designed for loading micro codes into the controller of the IBM 3330 disk pack file. However, additional uses for the floppy disk quickly occurred. Some examples of these other uses were transferring documents from one computer to another, and creating copies of very important computer documents.