Did computers ever have 5 1\2 " floppy disks for information storage?

Question

I seem to remember before the cd's and dvd's, there was maybe 51\2" disks used for information storage. Please give source of info. given. Thank You.

Answer 1

No, but you're close. Everything started with giant 8" disks for big computers in offices, and then there were 5 1/4" disks for home computers (this is probably what you're thinking of), and then after that there were 3 1/2" disks.

Some other popular but now defunct storage media were: ZIP disks (100MB, roughly 3 1/2" wide as well), backup tapes (some people still use really high capacity ones), audio cassettes (way back in the old days), computer tape (on big reels that had to be mounted manually), and way, WAY back in the day, some computers even read from punched paper cards. Before that, you had to enter the whole program into memory by hand every time you wanted to use it.

Answer 2

Most of the old computers had 5 1/4" and 3 1/2" floppy drives.

Answer 3

No. They had 5 1/4" floppy disks.

Answer 4

YOu must be very young. When I bought my first computer (a 286) it didn't have anything except DOS and a BASIC compiler. It had a very small hard-drive and one 5 1/4" floppy drive. Despite it's limitations, it was an awesome machine. Those were the good ol' days.

Answer 5

YEP, but they were 5 1/4", I STILL have a computer that uses them.
ALSO even older 7 1/2" and 10" discs for IBMs; and 12" x 10 disc EARLY Hard drive Platter "Disc Paks" that go with my Control Data PDP1170 Unix machine.

Answer 6

Yes they did. The source? Me. I had a 8086, 4.77mhz, 128kbs of RAM, that had two 128kb 5.25" drives. No hard drive.
Ran MP\C which is the forerunner to DOS.

Before that there was 8' floppies.

Here is a picture of a 5.25' (on left) and a 8" floppy

http://www.pdp8.net/rx02/med/floppies.jpg

Answer 7

yes i have had several back in the old days before dirt was invented.