I have seen the 8" floppys but never used one. I did use and have a fair collection of 5 1/4" for a good number of years. And I cursed the 3 1/2" floppies for their short, yet brutal lifespan. I can remember installing Windows 3.11 and AutoCAD 9 with a stacks of those accursed things. And daily backups for the bookkeeper were constant headache until we got a tape drive.
There’s some additional nostalgia attached to calling them with the simple fractions as opposed to the decimal ones, even if they mean the same thing. HDDs for example are still around and I’ve always seen their form factor as 3.5", not 3 1/2".
Don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say three point five" HDDS or read it in the decimal form-- Three and 5 tenths. It’s always said as the fractional form-- 3 1/2".
I think they mark them as 3.5" because it’s easier to typeset a decimal than fractions. Even those accursed 3 1/2" floppys seem to be marked 3.5" these days.
You can still buy new 3 1/2" disks. And usb connected drives are available to read and write them. So they ain’t dead.
But I do pour one out for the 5 1/4". The OG of common portable storage. It was the floppist of the floppies.
OG was the even larger physically / smaller data storage 8" floppy
I have seen the 8" floppys but never used one. I did use and have a fair collection of 5 1/4" for a good number of years. And I cursed the 3 1/2" floppies for their short, yet brutal lifespan. I can remember installing Windows 3.11 and AutoCAD 9 with a stacks of those accursed things. And daily backups for the bookkeeper were constant headache until we got a tape drive.
There’s some additional nostalgia attached to calling them with the simple fractions as opposed to the decimal ones, even if they mean the same thing. HDDs for example are still around and I’ve always seen their form factor as 3.5", not 3 1/2".
Don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say three point five" HDDS or read it in the decimal form-- Three and 5 tenths. It’s always said as the fractional form-- 3 1/2".
I think they mark them as 3.5" because it’s easier to typeset a decimal than fractions. Even those accursed 3 1/2" floppys seem to be marked 3.5" these days.