> But you might be wondering, how did 3M make the leap from reel-to-reel tape to floppies? It feels like just as strange a leap as a masking tape company develo

> But you might be wondering, how did 3M make the leap from reel-to-reel tape to floppies? It feels like just as strange a leap as a masking tape company developing reel-to-reel audio tape. Er... no, it doesn't? If you have experience with one kind of magnetic media, it sounds pretty reasonable that you could leverage that experience to make other kinds of magnetic media too. Actually, "fellow thick-Helvetica enthusiast" BASF did exactly the same: they were very big players in the reel-to-reel tape market too. And, while 3M spun out its magnetic media business as Imation, BASF did the same with EMTEC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMTEC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMTEC)