jan 1, 1971 - IBM "Minnow" Floppy Disk Drive

Description:

At IBM, development begins on the Minnow, a read-only floppy disk drive designed to load microcode into the controller for the "Merlin" (IBM 3330) Direct Access Storage Facility. The outcome of the work was a read-only, 8-inch, 80 kilobyte floppy disk and disk drive—the world’s first. Released as the IBM 23FD in 1971, it was used with the System 370 among other computers. Unlike hard drives, a user could easily transfer a floppy in its protective jacket from one drive to another. It was not until 1973 that IBM released a read/write floppy disk drive. Soon after, it became an industry standard.

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