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   csolisr (csolisr@hub.azkware.net)'s status on Monday, 24-Nov-2025 22:50:41 JST csolisr

   • Thomas 🔭🕹️
   @thomasfuchs If that was a diskette, were full-sized disks the size of a vynil back then?
   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Pińska (confluency@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 24-Nov-2025 22:57:42 JST Adrianna Pińska

     • Thomas 🔭🕹️

     @thomasfuchs In South Africa, 3½" floppies were referred to as "stiffy disks". I did not realise that this was a regionalism until much later, when I called them that in a conversation with a non-South African and they looked at me as if I'd grown a second head.

     (We also call traffic lights "robots".)

   • Embed this notice
     lemgandi (lemgandi@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 24-Nov-2025 23:34:00 JST lemgandi

     • Thomas 🔭🕹️

     @thomasfuchs When I started it IT, we used RL02 drives. They were the size of a washing machine, and if they got out of balance they could start to walk across the (raised) floor. Some people would take old disk packs apart and use the platters to make wall clocks.

     They held an astonishing 10 MB of data.

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     neffo (neffo@mas.to)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Nov-2025 00:40:41 JST neffo

     • Thomas 🔭🕹️

     @thomasfuchs Presumably the cassette (tape) being an influence on the name too?

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     Eli the Bearded (elithebearded@fed.qaz.red)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Nov-2025 04:21:21 JST Eli the Bearded

     • neffo
     • Thomas 🔭🕹️

     @thomasfuchs @neffo

     I don't know, but I could believe diskette was influenced by cassette. The small box tape was a massive reduction in size from the earlier attempt to box up the quarter inch tape used in open reel.

     Wikipedia provides this image.
     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassette_tape#History