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[–] 19 points 5 days ago* (16 children)

Wouldn't careful alignment be 5.25, and the click be 3.5? Or am I way off here? 5.25 are the big black actual floppy discs right? And then 3.5 or the smaller encased in harder shelled plastic with the little snappy metal sliding piece?

Also, what is going up with the letter p in this screenshot?:

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  • [–] 13 points 5 days ago (3 children)

    I seem to remember a swinging arm that I would click in place after inserting a 5 and a quarter floppy. I do think the 3 and a half floppies ticked a little when you pushed them into the drive, but not nearly so much as clicking the arm in place for the larger ones.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 days ago (7 children)

    Pretty sure the first floppies were 7", but there weren't in use for very long. But, I would agree with your assessment regarding the two sizes most of us were familiar with.

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  • [–] 5 points 4 days ago (6 children)

    8", not 7". Apparently, Strategic Air Command was using them to control nuclear weapon launch facilities until surprisingly recently (2019).

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  • [–] 2 points 4 days ago (5 children)

    Thanks for the correction; admittedly, those were a little before my time, although I did see then once or twice in the wild.

    Speaking of storage technology that just won't die, I think magnetic tape backups still exist in one form or another.

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  • [–] 8 points 4 days ago (4 children)

    Magnetic tape isn't obsolete at all. Apparently these days they're up to LTO-10, which can store 40TB per tape, and it's also the cheapest storage medium per unit capacity (albeit with an extremely high initial cost for the drive itself). The only reason people forget about it is because it isn't popular for home use.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 days ago* (1 child)

    Shouldn't data centers be doing reels of data tape then instead of taking all our forms of removable media?

    Wouldn't that make a lot more sense? 40tb reels sound a lot more effective than a 4tb HD. Probably a lot less heat too.

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