For every successful standard in the computer business, there are a dozen forgotten dead-ends that went nowhere. The same thing goes for computer data storage. Sure, we all remember 5.25- and 3.25-inch floppies, CD-ROM discs, and maybe even ZIP disks. But the history of removable media is far more varied than that.

Do you remember 2-inch floppies, hamster-sized hard drives, and the IBM PC that ran software from a cartridge? Even if you have foggy recollections of these strange storage formats, I think you'll enjoy this roundup of some of the weirdest media types to have ever graced the world of personal computers.

When you're done reading, feel free to share some of your weird media memories with us in the comments.

(This story was originally published on April 2, 2011.)


1. 2-Inch Floppy Disk



(Photos: Steven Stengel / Benj Edwards) Originally designed for early still-video cameras , the Fuji LT-1 2-inch floppy format only saw computer use in the 1989 Zenith Minisport laptop. Each disk held 720 kilobytes and were easily swallowed by a dog.

2. Hitachi Micro Hamster This actual Hitachi press photo features both a cuddly hamster and a tiny Compact Flash-sized hard disk drive called the Microdrive. First introduced in 1992 by IBM and Hitachi, the tiny spinning disk provided higher storage capacities (170MB initially, although 1GB was typical) and performance, combined with a lower cost per megabyte than flash media. Flash soon caught up, however, and miniature hard disks lost their luster.



(Photo: Hitachi)

3. Canon Optical Card



(Photo: Canon) The Canon Optical Card stored two megabytes of data on an optical layer that could be written once and never changed—much like a CD-R, but without the spinning disc. It saw limited trials as an identification card for medical information in the early 1990s, but vanished quickly after that.

4. 3-Inch Compact Floppy



(Photo: Benj Edwards) A consortium of manufacturers led by Matsushita introduced this 3-inch-wide Compact Floppy format in 1983 to compete with Sony's 3.5-inch floppy system. The Compact Floppy, which held about 140KB per side, saw the most use in British Amstrad computers; otherwise, the format faded quickly into history's back pages.

5. Sharp Bubble Memory



One of those products was the Sharp PC-5000, a very early IBM PC-compatible laptop released in 1983. It used Sharp CE-100B Magnetic Bubble Memory cartridges (seen here) for primary storage; each cartridge held 128KB of data.



(Photo: F.J. Kraan) Bubble memory is a somewhat exotic non-moving storage format that industry analysts once touted as the future replacement for spinning magnetic disks. Reality didn't match hype, however, and bubble memory saw only limited use in commercial products.One of those products was the Sharp PC-5000, a very early IBM PC-compatible laptop released in 1983. It used Sharp CE-100B Magnetic Bubble Memory cartridges (seen here) for primary storage; each cartridge held 128KB of data.

6. Apple Twiggy Diskette



Apple found the new drives to be unreliable in practice, so it ditched them in favor of the more standard 400KB Sony 3.5-inch drive (also used in the first Mac) when it launched a revised Lisa unit in 1984.



(Photo: Benj Edwards) The first Apple Lisa (1983) shipped with two integrated 5.25-inch disk drives. They used a proprietary format called "Fileware," although many referred to the disks by their code name, "Twiggy." Twiggy disks held 871KB of data and looked like bizarre Franken-versions of the standard 5.25-inch floppies most of us are familiar with.Apple found the new drives to be unreliable in practice, so it ditched them in favor of the more standard 400KB Sony 3.5-inch drive (also used in the first Mac) when it launched a revised Lisa unit in 1984.

7. Magneto-Optical Disk



(Photo: Fujitsu) Magneto-optical drives read data from special media with a laser, much like a CD-ROM drive. But unlike CDs, most MO disks are rewritable using a special magnetic process in conjunction with a laser to store data. The first widely known magneto-optical drive shipped with the NeXT Computer in 1988. Various MO drives and discs are still in production today, but they remain a niche market compared to other optical media like DVD-R.

8. IBM PCjr ROM Cartridge



(Photo: IBM) We typically think of ROM cartridges as a traditional form of video game media, but early home computers used them, too. Amazingly, Lotus made a cartridge-based version of its famous Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet program for the IBM PCjr in 1984. While fast-loading and user-friendly, ROM cartridges quickly lost popularity in the PC world due to low capacities and the high cost of manufacture versus other media.

9. Floptical Diskette



(Photo: FileFormat.info) Insight Peripherals introduced the first "floptical" drive in 1992. It stored 21MB of data on special 3.5-inch magnetic floppy disk media, and it was backwards-compatible with traditional 3.5-inch floppies. The floptical system achieved its high capacity through a hybrid "floppy-optical" design that combined traditional magnetic media with laser-based head tracking for more precision writes, allowing more tracks (and more storage) per disk.

10. Sinclair ZX Microdrive



(Photo: Jamie Percival) In 1983, Sinclair Research launched the ZX Microdrive system for its popular ZX Spectrum home computer. The ZX Microdrive stored 85KB of data on tiny, 1.3-inch-wide tape cartridges; each cartridge contained a complete 200-inch loop of magnetic tape, similar to an 8-track cassette. The Microdrive read and wrote data very fast compared to cassette tape drives of the era, but the tapes tended to wear out quickly. Ultimately, more reliable storage formats won the day.

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