12" Floppy Disks

[Fred Cisin]

On Tue, 15 Sep 2015, Adrian Graham wrote:
> Morning folks,
> I've been contacted by a teacher who's looking for any information about
> 12" floppies. Am I imagining that they really existed? I'm sure I've seen
> one or seen adverts for them, maybe at Bletchley Park. Others he's
> contacted think he's getting confused with 12" laser discs but I'm not so
> sure.
> Anyone?

First, how old is he?
If he is under 50, then he may be looking for the EARLY_PERCEPTION 12" 
floppy.  "Man, those things were HUGE! ENORMOUS! When my elementary 
school teacher brought one into class, it was bigger than my foot!"
What he is misremembering is an 8" disk.

If he is over 50, then he may be looking for the FADED_MEMORIES 12" 
floppy.  "Man, those things were HUGE! ENORMOUS!"
What he is misremembering is an 8" disk.

Or, he may be looking for the CREATIVE_MARKETING 12" floppy.
When TVs were round, the measurement was the diameter.  When they stopped 
being round, the measurement was the diagonal, or largest length.  More 
recently, they've started to round up.  And, now, I think that they are 
measuring the diagonal of the box that it is shipped in.  The diagonal of 
an 8" disk jacket is about 11", rounded up to 12"


Very large objects tend to be remembered as even larger.  I have a 
[damaged] 24" platter from a hard disk.  When mentioned later, most people 
remember it as being "three or four feet diameter!"


We have had numerous prior queries about the 12" floppies.  One tipoff is 
that sometimes the person asking will remember that floppies had TWO 
sizes, "five inch" and "twelve inch".  3.5" will either be called "three 
inch", or "hard disks"!  It is simply a misremembering of eight inch.

As Eric pointed out, floppies STARTED at 8", and went DOWN from there.


But, could we be wrong?
Of course.
But, I'm willing to bet $20 that nobody can send me a 12" floppy.


--
Grumpy Ol' Fred     		cisin at xenosoft.com