undefined | Better HN

0 pointsdeathanatos4y ago0 comments

I'm probably not old enough to qualify as "crotchety old man", but yeah, 3.5" are diskettes to me since they weren't really floppies.

I raise your floppy disk install one OS/2 Warp install: https://twitter.com/jhegarty/status/1162326199445655552/phot...

I still feel that OS/2 Warp feels more valuable in ones hands, just because of the sheer weight of it… (compared to modern OSes that have no weight because I download them…)

0 comments

11 comments · 6 top-level

hunter2_4y ago· 2 in thread

It's been so long since I've seen the word "diskette" that upon seeing it, I just had a crazy a-ha moment: could it be that the convention of "disk=magnetic, disc=optical" is based on the fact that they were all originally discs but the c was changed to k for magnetic media in order to facilitate the spelling of diskette (since discette with a c doesn't really work)? Or put another way, disk is just an abbreviated version of diskette which is a small disc, and therefore a tiny optical disc might also be rightfully called a disk?

floatingatoll4y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison_Disc_Record

I prefer your explanation, but I suspect it's also a chain of events from "Edison Disc Record" to "Compact Disc". The link is "Audio", absent from both product names.

Maybe it will just be called an "audio" someday! "Hey, I have an audio of that new band Named!" Hooray, it works in a sentence. Sold.

Symbiote4y ago

I think it's much simpler:

Diskettes, floppy disks etc were invented in the USA, where the standard spelling is "disk".

Compact discs were invented by Philips, who probably preferred the British spelling "disc", and Sony, who probably didn't care.

You can find the spelling "hard disc" in RISC OS, a 1990s British operating system: https://www.riscos.info/index.php/Introduction_to_RISC_OS#Us...

niccl4y ago· 2 in thread

in South Africa they were known as stiffies, which has a different meaning in some cultures

animal5314y ago

I was just about to reply with the same comment, but I see you beat me to it.

Synaesthesia4y ago

Surely not just here, right?

ddalcino4y ago· 1 in thread

In middle school I was taught that 5.25" diskettes were "floppies", and 3.5" diskettes were "hard disks", because of the hard plastic case. It was awesome.

unixhero4y ago

Many teachers tried to convince me that the computer chassis was called the CPU.

zwieback4y ago

The research org where I was interning bought OS/2 1.2 for a project and I loved it. When 2.0 came out I called the local IBM site (this was in Stuttgart Germany) and they told me "we have a new beta program, just bring 20 3.5" floppies and you can copy it, no questions asked". I went there, did the deed and the guy told me. You want the SDK and C compiler as well? Come back with 20 more floppies. You can bet I was back the next day.

mikestew4y ago

3.5" disks were floppy, but they were placed in a hard shell casing. Still floppy, though, unlike a hard drive platter.

wdb4y ago

OS/Warp 4 and it's Describe/2 was the best!

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse