24 Sep
2005
24 Sep
'05
11:45 a.m.
On Sat, 24 Sep 2005, Scott Stevens wrote:
The oddest 'floppy' drive that I ever saw was
a dictaphone machine that
recorded by cutting helical audio tracks like a phonograph record on a
thin 'floppy' plastic disk. Ooops, it wasn't digital (unless you held
it in your fingers).
<nitpick>
grooves "like a phonograph record" would be "SPIRAL", NOT
"helical".
"Helical" would be like a spiral stair case, or threads on a bolt.
Some of the early (Edison?) sound recorders DID cut helical threads on the
outside of a cylinder.
</nitpick>