5" floppy?.

[Mr Ian Primus]

--- On Mon, 11/24/08, Antonio Carlini <arcarlini at iee.org> wrote:

> >On Mon, 24 Nov 2008, Antonio Carlini wrote:
> >> Was there a 5" floppy format? I wouldn't
> be surprised to find out yet
> >> another format that I've never come across
> before, but I don't recall
> it
> >> cropping up here.
> 
> > 5.25"
> 
> OK. So it _could_ have been a
> typo/thinko/not-know-o/whatever.

That's what I would bet on. While the knowledge that diskettes come in three primary sizes (8", 5 1/4" and 3 1/2") is common among us geeks, the general population has entirely forgotten about 8" disks, and refers to 5 1/4" disks as "those big bendy disks", "five inch disks", or similar. Remember all the people that called 3 1/2" disks "hard disks"?

Even computer companies - people that should know better, make mistakes when talking about floppy disks. Last week I was in a Staples store (American office supply store chain), and saw a Memorex 3 1/2" USB floppy drive, the package stating clearly that it supported "1.44mb double sided and 720k single sided diskettes".

-Ian