NeXT boxes used magneto-optical disks, which usually meant a laser was used to heat the magnetic material during the write process, and at lower intensity to re

NeXT boxes used magneto-optical disks, which usually meant a laser was used to heat the magnetic material during the write process, and at lower intensity to read data optically. The optics in a floptical drive are just part of the head alignment servo mechanism, so it was probably much easier to make them cheap and backwards-compatible with mainstream floppies.