How Floppy Disks Work

No matter what the size — eight - inch , 5 1/4 - inch , 3 1/2 - column inch — floppy disks are the most iconic symbols of old - school computing . But how do they actually work?The 8 - number Guyspends 15 minutes breaking down what make floppy phonograph recording so cool , despite being obsolete .

When you disrobe back that familiar plastic case . The magnetised material of a floppy is n’t unlike the tape find in cassette . But once you start explore disc formats from IBM , Apple , Commodore , and other computing elders , things get weird and even more puzzling . It ’s one of the reasons why early platter formats did n’t work well ( or at all ) across different computer .

The video does n’t just stop with floppy disks themselves , but also come into the nitty - gritty tech surrounding disc drives and whether it ’s really that weird that the U.S. armed forces still relieson the decades - honest-to-goodness technology . ( Spoiler : it ’s not . )