A disk is a circular element that allows certain data to be recorded. Flexible , on the other hand, is something that can be bent easily (and is therefore not completely rigid).
The idea of a flexible disk refers to a medium that is used to store information . It is a circular magnetic sheet that is protected with a rectangular or square plastic cover.
Also known as floppy disks , diskettes or diskettes , flexible disks were widely used in computers to store and move digital files. These disks were inserted into the computer through a floppy disk drive , a device that was used to read and write (record) the floppy disks.
The first floppy disks to achieve popularity were 5 ¼-inch disks with a storage capacity of 1.2 MB , which emerged in the mid-1980s. A few years later , 3 ½-inch floppy disks with a storage capacity of 1.2 MB appeared. 1.44 MB .
On these flexible disks it was possible to store office documents, photographs, computer programs and games, for example. In some cases, the file was split across multiple disks. Starting in the 21st century , floppy disks fell into disuse due to the development of more advanced technologies, such as CD-ROM , DVD , Blu-ray , USB flash drives and online storage , among others.
The low storage capacity (1.44 MB of a 3 ½-inch floppy disk compared to 700 MB of a CD or more than 4 GB of a DVD, which are doubled if recorded in two layers, without entering into the tens of gigabytes that Blu-rays can hold) and the short useful life due to wear and tear turned floppy disks into obsolete objects. For several years, in fact, the computers on the market no longer include a floppy drive.
We must place ourselves in the historical context to understand the impact that the floppy disk had on the market, more specifically on the users who from one day to the next received the possibility of carrying their documents and programs in their pockets. At a time when the Internet did not yet exist and computers were very large and heavy, it was not a good idea to take them from home to the office, or to our friends' houses to show them our creations, for example.
Although there were other storage media , such as punched cards, their handling and maintenance were much more complicated and delicate processes: the machine itself in charge of sorting the cards could fail unexpectedly and destroy them in the blink of an eye. One of the extra advantages of the floppy disk was the presence of a small latch that served to prevent someone from deleting or overwriting the files by mistake.
The fact that today's computers do not include floppy disk readers does not mean that no one uses them. As in all areas, computing has a certain tradition-loving public, who lives in a very particular way its relationship with the programs and devices today considered "classic", and that prevents them from leaving these storage disks behind. , no matter how difficult it may be to maintain them.
Video games are a young art form, but they have had a very intense history: from their appearance in arcades during the 70s to the present, they have gone through an unparalleled technological evolution, which has taken them from graphics to pixel base to the sophisticated three-dimensional images that we see every day, whose fidelity brings them ever closer to reality. Given the characteristics of the first titles, it was possible to store them on one or more floppy disks, and purists are not willing to betray this format for reasons of convenience.