"The truth is the 3½-inch, 1.44 megabyte floppy - the disk that made it big - has always defied logic. It's not floppy for a start. The term was a hangover from

"The truth is the 3½-inch, 1.44 megabyte floppy - the disk that made it big - has always defied logic. It's not floppy for a start. The term was a hangover from its precursor, the 5¼-inch floppy, which had a definite lack of rigidness about it." I understand that this isn't immediately obvious to laypeople, but "floppy" refers to the data platter inside the diskette, which is, in fact, floppy. Not too surprising that a news site glanced over this, but being the first one to mention it here makes me feel decidedly old. Incidentally, I'd say my office goes through a box or two of floppies a week, mostly for use on those oh-so-expensive ancient oscilloscopes, curve tracers, and the like.