document_title: Floppy disk

question_text: where is data stored on a floppy disk

question_tokens: where is data stored on a floppy disk

text: Floppy disk

text: History[edit]

text:
Computer memory types

Volatile

RAM

DRAM
SRAM

Historical

Williams–Kilburn tube (1946–47)
Delay line memory (1947)
Mellon optical memory (1951)
Selectron tube (1952)
Dekatron
T-RAM (2009)
Z-RAM (2002–2010)

Non-volatile

ROM

Mask ROM
PROM
EPROM
EEPROM
Flash memory

NVRAM

ReRAM

Early stage NVRAM

FeRAM
MRAM
PCM

Magnetical

Magnetic tape
Hard disk drive

Optical

Optical disc

In development

CBRAM
Racetrack memory
NRAM
Millipede memory
FJG RAM

Historical

Paper data storage (1725)
Drum memory (1932)
Magnetic-core memory (1949)
Plated wire memory (1957)
Core rope memory (1960s)
Thin-film memory (1962)
Disk pack (1962)
Twistor memory (–1968)
Bubble memory (–1970)
Floppy disk (1971)

v
t
e

text: The first commercial floppy disks, developed in the late 1960s, are 8 inches (200 mm) in diameter;[1][2] they became commercially available in 1971 as a component of IBM products and then were sold separately beginning in 1972 by Memorex and others.[3] These disks and associated drives were produced and improved upon by IBM and other companies such as Memorex, Shugart Associates, and Burroughs Corporation.[4] The term "floppy disk" appeared in print as early as 1970,[5] and, although, in 1973, IBM announced its first media as the "Type 1 Diskette", the industry continued to use the terms "floppy disk" or "floppy".

text: In 1976, Shugart Associates introduced the 5¼-inch FDD. By 1978 there were more than 10 manufacturers producing such FDDs.[6] There were competing floppy disk formats, with hard- and soft-sector versions and encoding schemes such as FM, MFM, M²FM and GCR. The 5¼-inch format displaced the 8-inch one for most applications, and the hard-sectored disk format disappeared. The most common capacity of the 5¼-inch format in DOS-based PCs was 360 KB. In 1984 IBM introduced with its PC-AT model the 1.2 MB dual-sided floppy disk, but it never became very popular. IBM started using the 720 KB double-density 3½-inch microfloppy disk on its Convertible laptop computer in 1986 and the 1.44 MB high-density version with the PS/2 line in 1987. These disk drives could be added to older PC models. In 1988 IBM introduced a drive for 2.88 MB "DSED" diskettes in its top-of-the-line PS/2 models, but this was a commercial failure.

text: Throughout the early 1980s, limitations of the 5¼-inch format became clear. Originally designed to be more practical than the 8-inch format, it was itself too large; as the quality of recording media grew, data could be stored in a smaller area.[7] A number of solutions were developed, with drives at 2-, 2½-, 3-, 3¼-,[8] 3½- and 4-inches (and Sony's 90.0 mm × 94.0 mm disk) offered by various companies.[7] They all shared a number of advantages over the old format, including a rigid case with a sliding metal cover over the head slot, which helped protect the delicate magnetic medium from dust and damage, and a sliding write protection tab, which was far more practical than the adhesive tabs used with earlier disks. The large market share of the 5¼-inch format made it difficult for these new formats to gain significant market share.[7] A variant on the Sony design, introduced in 1982 by a large number of manufacturers, was then rapidly adopted; by 1988 the 3½-inch was outselling the 5¼-inch.[9]

text: Generally the term floppy disk persisted[a], even though later style floppy disks have a hard case around an internal floppy disk.

text: By the end of the 1980s, 5¼-inch disks had been superseded by 3½-inch disks. During this time, PCs frequently came equipped with drives of both sizes. By the mid-1990s, 5¼-inch drives had virtually disappeared, as the 3½-inch disk became the predominant floppy disk. The advantages of the 3½-inch disk were its higher capacity, its smaller size, and its rigid case which provided better protection from dirt and other environmental risks. However, largely due to its simpler construction (with no metal parts) the 5¼-inch disk unit price was lower throughout its history, usually in the range of a third to a half that of a 3½-inch disk.[citation needed]

text: Ubiquity[edit]

text: Floppy disks became ubiquitous during the 1980s and 1990s in their use with personal computers to distribute software, transfer data, and create backups. Before hard disks became affordable to the general population,[nb 1] floppy disks were often used to store a computer's operating system (OS). Most home computers from that period have an elementary OS and BASIC stored in ROM, with the option of loading a more advanced operating system from a floppy disk.

text: By the early 1990s, the increasing software size meant large packages like Windows or Adobe Photoshop required a dozen disks or more. In 1996, there were an estimated five billion standard floppy disks in use.[10] Then, distribution of larger packages was gradually replaced by CD-ROMs, DVDs and online distribution.

text: An attempt to enhance the existing 3½-inch designs was the SuperDisk in the late 1990s, utilizing very narrow data tracks and a high precision head guidance mechanism with a capacity of 120 MB[11] and backward-compatibility with standard 3½-inch floppies; a format war briefly occurred between SuperDisk and other high-density floppy-disk products, although ultimately recordable CDs/DVDs, solid-state flash storage, and eventually online storage would render all these removable disk formats obsolete. External USB-based floppy disk drives are still available, and many modern systems provide firmware support for booting from such drives.

text: Decline[edit]

text: In the mid 1990s, mechanically incompatible higher-density floppy disks were introduced, like the Iomega Zip disk. Adoption was limited by the competition between proprietary formats and the need to buy expensive drives for computers where the disks would be used. In some cases, failure in market penetration was exacerbated by release of higher-capacity versions of the drive and media being not backward-compatible with the original drives, dividing the users between new and old adopters. Consumers were wary of making costly investments into unproven and rapidly changing technologies, so none of the technologies became the established standard.

text: Apple introduced the iMac in 1998 with a CD-ROM drive but no floppy drive; this made USB-connected floppy drives popular accessories, as the iMac came without any writable removable media device.

text: Recordable CDs with even greater capacity, compatible with existing infrastructure of CD-ROM drives, made the expensive new high-capacity floppy technologies obsolete. The floppy disk's remaining reusability advantage was then eliminated by re-writeable CDs. However, writing and rewriting CDs was never as fast or convenient as writing on floppy disks, when the data fits on one or two floppy disks. Networking, advancements in flash-based devices, and widespread adoption of USB provided another alternative that in turn made both floppy disks and optical storage obsolete for some purposes. The rise of file sharing and multi-megapixel digital photography encouraged the use of files larger than most 3½-inch disks, the largest-capacity standard disks, could hold. Floppy disks were commonly used as sneakernet carriers for file transfer, but the broad availability of LANs and fast Internet connections provided a simpler and faster method of transferring such files, where the air-gapping of a sneakernet is not an important benefit. Other removable storage devices have advantages in both capacity and performance when network connections are unavailable or when networks are inadequate.

text: Use in the early 21st century[edit]

text: By 2002, most manufacturers still provided floppy disk drives as standard equipment to meet user demand for file-transfer and an emergency boot device, as well as for the general secure feeling of having the familiar device.[12] By this time, the retail cost of a floppy drive had fallen to around $20, so there was little financial incentive to omit the device from a system. Subsequently, enabled by the widespread support for USB flash drives and BIOS boot, manufacturers and retailers progressively reduced the availability of floppy disk drives as standard equipment. In February 2003, Dell, a leading computer company at the time, announced that floppy drives would no longer be pre-installed on Dell Dimension home computers, although they were still available as a selectable option and purchasable as an aftermarket OEM add-on.[13] As of January 2007, only 2% of computers sold in stores contained built-in floppy disk drives.[14]

text: Floppy disks are used for emergency boots in aging systems lacking support for other bootable media and for BIOS updates, since most BIOS and firmware programs can still be executed from bootable floppy disks. If BIOS updates fail or become corrupt, floppy drives can sometimes be used to perform a recovery. The music and theatre industries still use equipment requiring standard floppy disks (e.g. synthesizers, samplers, drum machines, sequencers, and lighting consoles). Industrial automation equipment such as programmable machinery and industrial robots may not have a USB interface; data and programs are then loaded from disks, damageable in industrial environments. This equipment may not be replaced due to cost or requirement for continuous availability; existing software emulation and virtualization do not solve this problem because a customized operating system is used that has no drivers for USB devices. Hardware floppy disk emulators can be made to interface floppy-disk controllers to a USB port that can be used for flash drives.

text: In May 2016, the United States Government Accountability Office released a report that covered the need to upgrade or replace legacy computer systems within federal agencies. According to this document, old IBM Series/1 minicomputers running on 8-inch floppy disks are still used to coordinate "the operational functions of the United States' nuclear forces". The government plans to update some of the technology by the end of the 2017 fiscal year.[15][16]

text: Windows 10 no longer includes a generic driver for USB floppy drives.[17]

text: Legacy[edit]

text: For more than two decades, the floppy disk was the primary external writable storage device used. Most computing environments before the 1990s were non-networked, and floppy disks were the primary means of transferring data between computers, a method known informally as sneakernet. Unlike hard disks, floppy disks are handled and seen; even a novice user can identify a floppy disk. Because of these factors, a picture of a 3½-inch floppy disk has become an interface metaphor for saving data. The floppy disk symbol is still used by software on user-interface elements related to saving files, such as the release of Microsoft Office 2016, even though the physical floppy disks are largely obsolete.[18]

text: Design[edit]

text: Structure[edit]

text: 8-inch and 5¼-inch disks[edit]

text: The 8-inch and 5¼-inch floppy disks contain a magnetically coated round plastic medium with a large circular hole in the center for a drive's spindle. The medium is contained in a square plastic cover that has a small oblong opening in both sides to allow the drive's heads to read and write data and a large hole in the center to allow the magnetic medium to spin by rotating it from its middle hole.

text: Inside the cover are two layers of fabric with the magnetic medium sandwiched in the middle. The fabric is designed to reduce friction between the medium and the outer cover, and catch particles of debris abraded off the disk to keep them from accumulating on the heads. The cover is usually a one-part sheet, double-folded with flaps glued or spot-welded together.

text: A small notch disk identifies that it is writable, detected by a mechanical switch or phototransistor above it; if it is not present, the disk can be written; in the 8-inch disk the notch is covered to enable writing while in the 5¼-inch disk the notch is open to enable writing. Tape may be used over the notch to change the mode of the disk. Punch devices were sold to convert read-only disks to writable ones and enable writing on the unused side of single sided disks; such modified disks became known as flippy disks.

text: Another LED/photo-transistor pair located near the center of the disk detects the index hole once per rotation in the magnetic disk; it is used to detect the angular start of each track and whether or not the disk is rotating at the correct speed. Early 8‑inch and 5¼‑inch disks had physical holes for each sector and were termed hard sectored disks. Later soft-sectored disks have only one index hole, and sector position is determined by the disk controller or low-level software from patterns marking the start of a sector. Generally, the same drives are used to read and write both types of disks, with only the disks and controllers differing. Some operating systems utilizing soft sectors, such as Apple DOS, do not use the index hole; the drives designed for such systems often lack the corresponding sensor; this was mainly a hardware cost-saving measure.[19]

text: 3½-inch disk[edit]

text: The core of the 3½-inch disk is the same as the other two disks, but the front has only a label and a small opening for reading and writing data, protected by the shutter—a spring-loaded metal or plastic cover, pushed to the side on entry into the drive. Rather than having a hole in the center, it has a metal hub which mates to the spindle of the drive. Typical 3½-inch disk magnetic coating materials are:[20]

text:
DD: 2 µm magnetic iron oxide
HD: 1.2 µm cobalt-doped iron oxide
ED: 3 µm barium ferrite

text: Two holes at the bottom left and right indicate whether the disk is write-protected and whether it is high-density; these holes are spaced as far apart as the holes in punched A4 paper, allowing write-protected high-density floppies to be clipped into standard ring binders. A notch at top right ensures that the disk is in the correct orientation and an arrow at top left indicates direction of insertion. The drive usually has a button that when pressed ejects the disk with varying degrees of force, the discrepancy due to the ejection force provided by the spring of the shutter. In IBM PC compatibles, Commodores, Apple II/IIIs, and other non-Apple-Macintosh machines with standard floppy disk drives, a disk may be ejected manually at any time. The drive has a disk-change switch that detects when a disk is ejected or inserted. Failure of this mechanical switch is a common source of disk corruption if a disk is changed and the drive (and hence the operating system) fails to notice.

text: One of the chief usability problems of the floppy disk is its vulnerability; even inside a closed plastic housing, the disk medium is highly sensitive to dust, condensation and temperature extremes. As with all magnetic storage, it is vulnerable to magnetic fields. Blank disks have been distributed with an extensive set of warnings, cautioning the user not to expose it to dangerous conditions. Disks must not be roughly treated or removed from the drive while the magnetic media is still spinning, since doing so is likely to cause damage to the disk, drive head, or stored data. On the other hand, the 3½‑inch floppy has been lauded for its mechanical usability by HCI expert Donald Norman:[21]

text: "A simple example of a good design is the 3½-inch magnetic diskette for computers, a small circle of floppy magnetic material encased in hard plastic. Earlier types of floppy disks did not have this plastic case, which protects the magnetic material from abuse and damage. A sliding metal cover protects the delicate magnetic surface when the diskette is not in use and automatically opens when the diskette is inserted into the computer. The diskette has a square shape: there are apparently eight possible ways to insert it into the machine, only one of which is correct. What happens if I do it wrong? I try inserting the disk sideways. Ah, the designer thought of that. A little study shows that the case really isn't square: it's rectangular, so you can't insert a longer side. I try backward. The diskette goes in only part of the way. Small protrusions, indentations, and cutouts, prevent the diskette from being inserted backward or upside down: of the eight ways one might try to insert the diskette, only one is correct, and only that one will fit. An excellent design."

text: Operation[edit]

text: A spindle motor in the drive rotates the magnetic medium at a certain speed, while a stepper motor-operated mechanism moves the magnetic read/write head(s) radially along the surface of the disk. Both read and write operations require the media to be rotating and the head to contact the disk media, an action originally accomplished by a disk-load solenoid.[22] Later drives held the heads out of contact until a front-panel lever was rotated (5¼") or disk insertion was complete (3½"). To write data, current is sent through a coil in the head as the media rotates. The head's magnetic field aligns the magnetization of the particles directly below the head on the media. When the current is reversed the magnetization aligns in the opposite direction, encoding one bit of data. To read data, the magnetization of the particles in the media induce a tiny voltage in the head coil as they pass under it. This small signal is amplified and sent to the floppy disk controller, which converts the streams of pulses from the media into data, checks it for errors, and sends it to the host computer system.

text: A blank unformatted diskette has a coating of magnetic oxide with no magnetic order to the particles. During formatting, the magnetizations of the particles are aligned forming tracks, each broken up into sectors, enabling the controller to properly read and write data. The tracks are concentric rings around the center, with spaces between tracks where no data is written; gaps with padding bytes are provided between the sectors and at the end of the track to allow for slight speed variations in the disk drive, and to permit better interoperability with disk drives connected to other similar systems. Each sector of data has a header that identifies the sector location on the disk. A cyclic redundancy check (CRC) is written into the sector headers and at the end of the user data so that the disk controller can detect potential errors. Some errors are soft and can be resolved by automatically re-trying the read operation; other errors are permanent and the disk controller will signal a failure to the operating system if multiple attempts to read the data still fail.

text: After a disk is inserted, a catch or lever at the front of the drive is manually lowered to prevent the disk from accidentally emerging, engage the spindle clamping hub, and in two-sided drives, engage the second read/write head with the media. In some 5¼-inch drives, insertion of the disk compresses and locks an ejection spring which partially ejects the disk upon opening the catch or lever. This enables a smaller concave area for the thumb and fingers to grasp the disk during removal. Newer 5¼-inch drives and all 3½-inch drives automatically engage the spindle and heads when a disk is inserted, doing the opposite with the press of the eject button. On Apple Macintosh computers with built-in floppy drives, the ejection button is replaced by software controlling an ejection motor which only does so when the operating system no longer needs to access the drive. The user could drag the image of the floppy drive to the trash can on the desktop to eject the disk. In the case of a power failure or drive malfunction, a loaded disk can be removed manually by inserting a straightened paper clip into a small hole at the drive's front panel, just as one would do with a CD-ROM drive in a similar situation.

text: Before a disk can be accessed, the drive needs to synchronize its head position with the disk tracks. In some drives, this is accomplished with a Track Zero Sensor, while for others it involves the drive head striking an immobile reference surface. In either case, the head is moved so that it is approaching track zero position of the disk. When a drive with the sensor has reached track zero, the head stops moving immediately and is correctly aligned. For a drive without the sensor, the mechanism attempts to move the head the maximum possible number of positions needed to reach track zero, knowing that once this motion is complete, the head will be positioned over track zero.

text: Some drive mechanisms such as the Apple II 5.25 inch drive without a track zero sensor, produce very characteristic mechanical noises when trying to move the heads past the reference surface. This physical striking is responsible for the 5.25 inch drive clicking during the boot of an Apple II, and the loud rattles of its DOS and ProDOS when disk errors occurred and track zero synchronization was attempted.

text: Sizes[edit]

text: Different sizes of floppy disks are mechanically incompatible, and disks can fit only one size of drive. Drive assemblies with both 3½-inch and 5¼-inch slots were available during the transition period between the sizes, but they contained two separate drive mechanisms. In addition, there are many subtle, usually software-driven incompatibilities between the two. 5¼-inch disks formatted for use with Apple II computers would be unreadable and treated as unformatted on a Commodore. As computer platforms began to form, attempts were made at interchangeability. For example, the "SuperDrive" included from the Macintosh SE to the Power Macintosh G3 could read, write and format IBM PC format 3½-inch disks, but few IBM-compatible computers had drives that did the reverse. 8-inch, 5¼-inch and 3½-inch drives were manufactured in a variety of sizes, most to fit standardized drive bays. Alongside the common disk sizes were non-classical sizes for specialized systems.

text: 8-inch floppy disk[edit]

text: The first floppy disk was 8 inches in diameter,[1] was protected by a flexible plastic jacket and was a read-only device used by IBM as a way of loading microcode.[23] Read/write floppy disks and their drives became available in 1972 but it was IBM's 1973 introduction of the 3740 data entry system[24] that began the establishment of floppy disks, called by IBM the "Diskette 1", as an industry standard for information interchange. Early microcomputers used for engineering, business, or word processing often used one or more 8-inch disk drives for removable storage; the CP/M operating system was developed for microcomputers with 8-inch drives.

text: The family of 8-inch disks and drives increased over time and later versions could store up to 1.2 MB;[25] many microcomputer applications did not need that much capacity on one disk, so a smaller size disk with lower-cost media and drives was feasible. The 5¼-inch drive succeeded the 8-inch size in many applications, and developed to about the same storage capacity as the original 8-inch size, using higher-density media and recording techniques.

text: 5¼-inch floppy disk[edit]

text: The head gap of an 80‑track high-density (1.2 MB in the MFM format) 5¼‑inch drive (a.k.a. Mini diskette, Mini disk, or Minifloppy) is smaller than that of a 40‑track double-density (360 KB) drive but can format, read and write 40‑track disks well provided the controller supports double stepping or has a switch to do such a process. 5.25-inch 80-track drives were also called hyper drives.[nb 2] A blank 40‑track disk formatted and written on an 80‑track drive can be taken to its native drive without problems, and a disk formatted on a 40‑track drive can be used on an 80‑track drive. Disks written on a 40‑track drive and then updated on an 80 track drive become unreadable on any 40‑track drives due to track width incompatibility.

text: Single sided disks were coated on both sides, despite the availability of more expensive double sided disks. The reason usually given for the higher cost was that double sided disks were certified error-free on both sides of the media. Double-sided disks could be used in some drives for single-sided disks, as long as an index signal was not needed. This was done one side at a time, by turning them over (flippy disks); more expensive dual-head drives which could read both sides without turning over were later produced, and eventually became used universally.

text: 3½-inch floppy disk[edit]

text: In the early 1980s, a number of manufacturers introduced smaller floppy drives and media in various formats. A consortium of 21 companies eventually settled on a 3½-inch floppy disk (actually 90 mm wide) a.k.a. Micro diskette, Micro disk, or Micro floppy, similar to a Sony design but improved to support both single-sided and double-sided media, with formatted capacities generally of 360 KB and 720 KB respectively. Single-sided drives shipped in 1983,[26] and double sided in 1984. What became the most common format, the double-sided, high-density (HD) 1.44 MB disk drive, shipped in 1986.

text: The first Macintosh computers use single-sided 3½-inch floppy disks, but with 400 KB formatted capacity. These were followed in 1986 by double-sided 800 KB floppies. The higher capacity was achieved at the same recording density by varying the disk rotation speed with head position so that the linear speed of the disk was closer to constant. Later Macs could also read and write 1.44 MB HD disks in PC format with fixed rotation speed.

text: All 3½-inch disks have a rectangular hole in one corner which, if obstructed, write-enabled the disk. A sliding detented piece can be moved to block or reveal the part of the rectangular hole that is sensed by the drive. The HD 1.44 MB disks have a second, unobstructed hole in the opposite corner which identifies them as being of that capacity.

text: In IBM-compatible PCs, the three densities of 3½-inch floppy disks are backwards-compatible: higher density drives can read, write and format lower density media. It is also possible to format a disk at a lower density than it was intended for, but only if the disk is first thoroughly demagnetized with a bulk eraser, as the high density format is magnetically stronger and will prevent the disk from working in lower density modes.

text: Writing at different densities than disks were intended for, sometimes by altering or drilling holes, was possible but deprecated. The holes on the right side of a 3½‑inch disk can be altered as to make some disk drives and operating systems treat the disk as one of higher or lower density, for bidirectional compatibility or economical reasons.[clarification needed][27][28] Some computers, such as the PS/2 and Acorn Archimedes, ignored these holes altogether.[29]

text: It is possible to make a 3½-inch floppy disk drive be recognized by a system as a 5¼‑inch 360 KB or 1200 KB drive, and to read and write disks with the same number of tracks and sectors as those disks; this had some application in data exchange with obsolete CP/M systems.[citation needed]

text: Other sizes[edit]

text: Other, smaller, floppy sizes were proposed, especially for portable or pocket-sized devices that needed a smaller storage device. 3-inch disks similar in construction to 3½-inch were manufactured and used for a time, particularly by Amstrad computers and word processors. A 2-inch nominal size known as the Video Floppy was introduced by Sony for use with its Mavica still video camera.[30] An incompatible 2-inch floppy was produced by Fujifilm called the LT-1 was used in the Zenith Minisport portable computer.[31] Neither of these sizes achieved much market success.[32]

text: Sizes, performance and capacity[edit]

text: Floppy disk size is often referred to in inches, even in countries using metric and though the size is defined in metric. The ANSI specification of 3½-inch disks is entitled in part "90 mm (3.5 inch)" though 90 mm is closer to 3.54 inches.[33] Formatted capacities are generally set in terms of kilobytes and megabytes.

text:
Historical sequence of floppy disk formats

Disk format
Year introduced
Formatted storage capacity
Marketed capacity

8-inch: IBM 23FD (read-only)
1971
79.75 kB[34]
not marketed commercially

8-inch: Memorex 650
1972
175 kB
1.5 megabit unformatted[35]

8-inch: SSSD
IBM 33FD/Shugart 901

1973
237.25 kB[34][36]
3.1 megabit unformatted

8-inch: DSSD
IBM 43FD/Shugart 850

1976
500.5 kB[34]
6.2 megabit unformatted

5¼-inch (35 track) Shugart SA 400
1976[37]
87.5 kB[38]
110 kB

8-inch DSDD
IBM 53FD / Shugart 850

1977
985 kB-1,212 kB depending upon sector size
1.2 MB

5¼-inch DD
1978
360 or 800 kB
360 kB

5¼-inch Apple Disk II (Pre-DOS 3.3)
1978
113.75 kB (256 byte sectors, 13 sectors/track, 35 tracks)
113 kB

5¼-inch Atari DOS 2.0S
1979
90 kB (128 byte sectors, 18 sectors/track, 40 tracks)
90 kB

5¼-inch Apple Disk II (DOS 3.3)
1980
140 kB (256 byte sectors, 16 sectors/track, 35 tracks)
140 kB

5¼-inch Apple Disk II (Roland Gustafsson's RWTS18)
1988
157 kB (768 byte sectors, 6 sectors/track, 35 tracks)
Game publishers privately contracted 3rd party custom DOS.

3½-inch HP single sided
1982
256×16×70 = 280 kB
264 kB

5¼-inch Atari DOS 3
1983
127 kB (128 byte sectors, 26 sectors/track, 40 tracks)
130 kB

3-inch
1982[39][40]
360 kB[citation needed]
125 kB (SS/SD),
500 kB (DS/DD)[40]

3½-inch SS (DD at release)
1983[41]
360 kB (400 on Macintosh)
500 kB

3½-inch DS DD
1984
720 kB (800 on Macintosh, 880 KB on Amiga)
1 MB

5¼-inch QD

720 kB
720 kB

5¼-inch RX50 (SSQD)
circa 1982
400 kB[citation needed]
400 kB

5¼-inch HD
1982[42]
1,200 kB
1.2 MB

3-inch DD
1984[citation needed]
720 kB[citation needed]
?

3-inch Mitsumi Quick Disk
1985
128 to 256 kB
?

2-inch
1989
720 kB[43]
?

2½-inch Sharp CE-1600F,[44] CE-140F (chassis: FDU-250, medium: CE-1650F)[45]
1986[44][45][46]
turnable diskette with 62,464 bytes per side (512 byte sectors, 8 sectors/track, 16 tracks, GCR (4/5) recording)[44][45]
2× 64 kB (128 kB)[44][45]

5¼-inch Perpendicular
1986[46]
10 MB[citation needed]
?

3½-inch HD
1986
1,440 kB (1,760 kB on Amiga)
1.44 MB (2.0 MB unformatted)

3½-inch ED
1987[47]
2,880 kB
2.88 MB

3½-inch Floptical (LS)
1991
20,385 kB
21 MB

3½-inch Superdisk (LS-120)
1996
120.375 MB
120 MB

3½-inch Superdisk (LS-240)
1997
240.75 MB
240 MB

3½-inch HiFD
1998/99
150/200 MB[citation needed]
150/200 MB

Abbreviations: SD = Single Density; DD = Double Density; QD = Quad Density; HD = High Density; ED = Extra-high Density;[48][49][50][51][52]LS = Laser Servo; HiFD = High capacity Floppy Disk; SS = Single Sided; DS = Double Sided

Formatted storage capacity is total size of all sectors on the disk:

For 8-inch see List of floppy disk formats#IBM 8-inch formats. Spare, hidden and otherwise reserved sectors are included in this number.
For 5¼- and 3½-inch capacities quoted are from subsystem or system vendor statements.

Marketed capacity is the capacity, typically unformatted, by the original media OEM vendor or in the case of IBM media, the first OEM thereafter. Other formats may get more or less capacity from the same drives and disks.

text: Data is generally written to floppy disks in sectors (angular blocks) and tracks (concentric rings at a constant radius). For example, the HD format of 3½-inch floppy disks uses 512 bytes per sector, 18 sectors per track, 80 tracks per side and two sides, for a total of 1,474,560 bytes per disk.[53] Some disk controllers can vary these parameters at the user's request, increasing storage on the disk, although they may not be able to be read on machines with other controllers. For example, Microsoft applications were often distributed on 3½-inch 1.68 MB DMF disks formatted with 21 sectors instead of 18; they could still be recognized by a standard controller. On the IBM PC, MSX and most other microcomputer platforms, disks were written using a constant angular velocity (CAV) format,[47] with the disk spinning at a constant speed and the sectors holding the same amount of information on each track regardless of radial location.

text: Because the sectors have constant angular size, the 512 bytes in each sector are compressed more near the disk's center. A more space-efficient technique would be to increase the number of sectors per track toward the outer edge of the disk, from 18 to 30 for instance, thereby keeping nearly constant the amount of physical disk space used for storing each sector; an example is zone bit recording. Apple implemented this in early Macintosh computers by spinning the disk more slowly when the head was at the edge, while maintaining the data rate, allowing 400 KB of storage per side and an extra 160 KB on a double-sided disk.[54] This higher capacity came with a disadvantage: the format used a unique drive mechanism and control circuitry, meaning that Mac disks could not be read on other computers. Apple eventually reverted to constant angular velocity on HD floppy disks with their later machines, still unique to Apple as they supported the older variable-speed formats.

text: Disk formatting is usually done by a utility program supplied by the computer OS manufacturer; generally, it sets up a file storage directory system on the disk, and initializes its sectors and tracks. Areas of the disk unusable for storage due to flaws can be locked (marked as "bad sectors") so that the operating system does not attempt to use them. This was time consuming so many environments had quick formatting which skipped the error checking process. When floppy disks were often used, disks pre-formatted for popular computers were sold. The unformatted capacity of a floppy disk does not include the sector and track headings of a formatted disk; the difference in storage between them depends on the drive's application. Floppy disk drive and media manufacturers specify the unformatted capacity (for example, 2 MB for a standard 3½-inch HD floppy). It is implied that this should not be exceeded, since doing so will most likely result in performance problems. DMF was introduced permitting 1.68 MB to fit onto an otherwise standard 3½-inch disk; utilities then appeared allowing disks to be formatted as such.

text: Mixtures of decimal prefixes and binary sector sizes require care to properly calculate total capacity. Whereas semiconductor memory naturally favors powers of two (size doubles each time an address pin is added to the integrated circuit), the capacity of a disk drive is the product of sector size, sectors per track, tracks per side and sides (which in hard disk drives with multiple platters can be greater than 2). Although other sector sizes have been known in the past, formatted sector sizes are now almost always set to powers of two (256 bytes, 512 bytes, etc.), and, in some cases, disk capacity is calculated as multiples of the sector size rather than only in bytes, leading to a combination of decimal multiples of sectors and binary sector sizes. For example, 1.44 MB 3½-inch HD disks have the "M" prefix peculiar to their context, coming from their capacity of 2,880 512-byte sectors (1,440 KiB), consistent with neither a decimal megabyte nor a binary mebibyte (MiB). Hence, these disks hold 1.47 MB or 1.41 MiB. Usable data capacity is a function of the disk format used, which in turn is determined by the FDD controller and its settings. Differences between such formats can result in capacities ranging from approximately 1300 to 1760 KiB (1.80 MB) on a standard 3½-inch high-density floppy (and up to nearly 2 MB with utilities such as 2M/2MGUI). The highest capacity techniques require much tighter matching of drive head geometry between drives, something not always possible and unreliable. For example, the LS-240 drive supports a 32 MB capacity on standard 3½-inch HD disks,[55] but it is, however, a write-once technique, and requires its own drive.

text: The raw maximum transfer rate of 3½-inch HD floppy drives and interfaces, disregarding overheads, is as much as 1,000 kilobits/s, or approximately 83% that of single-speed CD‑ROM (71% of audio CD). This represents the speed of raw data bits moving under the read head; however, the effective speed is somewhat less due to space used for headers, gaps and other format fields.


document_title: Cloak & Dagger (TV series)

question_text: when does cloak and dagger episode 3 come out

root

text: Cloak & Dagger (TV series)

text: Premise[edit]

text: In New Orleans, teenagers Tandy Bowen and Tyrone Johnson come from different backgrounds and have acquired superpowers after a life-changing event that revolved around the collapse of the Roxxon Gulf Platform. As their relationship unfolds, they soon realize that their powers work better when they are together, "but their feelings for each other make their already complicated world even more challenging."[1]

tag: p

text: Cast and characters[edit]

text: Main[edit]

text:
Olivia Holt as Tandy Bowen / Dagger: A teenager and street thief who is connected to Tyrone Johnson through a shared childhood tragedy,[2] with the ability to emit light daggers.[3] Showrunner Joe Pokaski felt Bowen in the series was "more cynical" than previous portrayals, and noted that when she touches people she can access their hopes and desires, saying, "There’s something exciting about having a cynical character like Tandy who steals things and doesn’t believe in the good of man, yet sees the best in them when she touches them".[4] Rachel Ryals portrays a young Tandy.[5]
Aubrey Joseph as Tyrone Johnson / Cloak: A teenager, who is connected to Tandy Bowen through a shared childhood tragedy, with the ability to engulf others in darkness and transport them through the Darkforce dimension.[3][2] Johnson has the ability to witness people's fears, having been "living in a world of fear" since the death of his older brother Billy. Pokaski added, "There was something interesting in helping him to understand that everyone is afraid."[4] Maceo Smedley III portrays a young Tyrone.[5]
Gloria Reuben as Adina Johnson: Tyrone's mother and worker at Roxxon who invests heavily in making sure her son has a good life.[6]
Andrea Roth as Melissa Bowen: Tandy's drug and alcohol-addicted yet optimistic mother.[6]
J. D. Evermore as Connors: An intimidating scar-faced detective of the New Orleans Police Department's vice squad with a secret.[6]
Miles Mussenden as Otis Johnson: Tyrone's working class father who tries to provide for his family and is also an associate of the Wild Red Hawks.[6][7] The character was originally announced as being named "Michael."[6]
Carl Lundstedt as Liam Walsh: Tandy's partner in crime and ex-boyfriend.[6][8]
Emma Lahana as Brigid O'Reilly: A detective from Harlem with hardened New York sensibilities who believes no one is above the law, including other cops.[9]
Jaime Zevallos as Delgado: A school counselor and priest who is constantly seeking redemption and questions the life he has chosen.[9]

tag: ul

text: Recurring[edit]

text:
Wayne Péré as Peter Scarborough: The CEO at Roxxon Gulf who is responsible for confiscating Nathan Bowen's work following his death.[10]
Noëlle Renée Bercy as Evita Fusilier: A friend and love interest of Tyrone's. Bercy, who is from New Orleans, was familiar with the voodoo culture of the city, and was able to speak to people regarding it for her part.[8]
Lane Miller as Fuchs: A New Orleans police officer and O'Reilly's love interest.[10]
Angela Davis as Chantelle: Evita's aunt who is a voodoo priestess and an expert on every divine pairings in New Orleans history.[11]
Ally Maki as Mina Hess: An environmental engineer at Roxxon Gulf who befriends Tandy.[12]  Hannah Hardin portrays a younger Mina.[13]
Tim Kang as Ivan Hess: Mina's father who worked with Nathan Bowen at Roxxon Gulf.[14]

text: Guest[edit]

text:
Marqus Clae as Billy Johnson: Tyrone's older brother who is shot and killed by Connors the night when the Roxxon Gulf Platform collapsed.[15]  Carsyn Taylor portrays a young Billy.[16]
Mike Donovan as Rick Cotton: A rich bachelor whom Tandy robs.[15]
Dalon J. Holland as Duane Porter: A friend of Billy Johnson and acquaintance of Tyrone.[10]
Andy Dylan as Nathan Bowen: Tandy's father and former employee at Roxxon Gulf, who was killed in a car accident the night when the Roxxon Gulf platform collapsed.[17]
Gary Weeks as Greg Pressfield: Melissa's "boyfriend", who is a lawyer looking into the case involving Nathan Bowen's work at Roxxon.[18]
Dalton E. Gray as Benny: One of Tyrone's basketball teammates.
Luray Cooper as Big Chief Roland Duplantier: The leader of a Mardi Gras tribe called the Wild Red Hawks, and friend of Otis Johnson.
Gralen Banks as Choo Choo Broussard: A member of the Wild Red Hawk Mardi Gras tribes, and friend of Otis Johnson.
Vanessa Motta as a professional killer disguised as a water delivery person.

text: Stan Lee has a cameo appearance as an on-set painting.[4]

text: Episodes[edit]

text:
No.TitleDirected byWritten byOriginal air dateU.S. viewers(millions)1"First Light"Gina Prince-BythewoodJoe PokaskiJune 7, 2018 (2018-06-07)0.919[19]
2"Suicide Sprints"Alex Garcia LopezJoe PokaskiJune 7, 2018 (2018-06-07)0.750[19]
3"Stained Glass"Peter HoarStory by : Ariella Blejer & Dawn Kamoche Teleplay by : Peter CallowayJune 14, 2018 (2018-06-14)0.548[20]
4"Call/Response"Ami Canaan MannChristine Boylan & Marcus J. GuilloryJune 21, 2018 (2018-06-21)0.606[21]
5"Princeton Offense"Ry Russo-YoungNiceole R. Levy & Joe PokaskiJune 28, 2018 (2018-06-28)0.509[22]
6"Funhouse Mirrors"Jennifer PhangJ. Holtham & Jenny KleinJuly 5, 2018 (2018-07-05)0.499[23]
7"Lotus Eaters"Paul EdwardsJoe Pokaski & Peter CallowayJuly 12, 2018 (2018-07-12)0.538[24]
8"Ghost Stories"Alex Garcia LopezChristine Boylan & Jenny KleinJuly 19, 2018 (2018-07-19)0.401[25]
9"Back Breaker"Jeff WoolnoughNiceole R. Levy & Peter CallowayJuly 26, 2018 (2018-07-26)0.531[26]
10"Colony Collapse"Wayne YipJoe PokaskiAugust 2, 2018 (2018-08-02)0.423[27]

tag: table

text: Production[edit]

text: Development[edit]

text: At San Diego Comic-Con International 2011, head of Marvel Television Jeph Loeb announced the series Cloak & Dagger was in development at ABC Family. The series, which would be set in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, would follow Cloak and Dagger as the two "find each other and realize that their powers both complement and complicate their lives."[28] Around this time, Loeb had a meeting with ABC Family, who recommended Joe Pokaski to Loeb as a potential writer to work with Marvel Television, based on a script for another series the channel had recently received from Pokaski. Loeb reached out to Pokaski about working with Marvel, who was interested in writing Cloak and Dagger since "there’s something that felt so right about them for the television format", and wrote the script. Pokaski was attracted to Cloak and Dagger as a television series, because the duo are the only people who understand each other’s situations, compared to other coming-of-age teenage television series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Smallville where the main characters have no one who can relate to them.[29]

text: In April 2016, the series received a straight-to-series order for Freeform, the new name of ABC Family, from ABC Signature Studios and Marvel Television.[1] By August 2016, Pokaski had signed on to the series as showrunner and executive producer.[30][31][32] Pokaski noted his script had "sat in a drawer for five years", before Freeform executive Karey Burke found it and "took a chance on it".[29] Loeb, Jim Chory,[33][32] Alan Fine, Stan Lee, Joe Quesada, and Karim Zreik also serve as executive producers, while Jenny Klein produces the series.[10]

text: On July 20, 2018, Freeform renewed the series for a 10-episode second season.[34]

text: Writing[edit]

text:
... [I]t all starts with representation... [W]e make sure our writers room is filled with as many people who do not look like me as possible. We have really good writers who allow ourselves a wide enough berth to have real conversations and find the truth across our experiences. That's the key; it's what people talk about a lot but we try to actually execute it.
—Showrunner Joe Pokaski on having diversity in the series' writers and the issues the series can explore.[35]

tag: div

text: When announcing the series, Freeform called it their "first venture into the Marvel Cinematic Universe", and described it as a "superhero love story", a premise that Variety called "a seamless fit for Freeform" given the channel's target audience of "Becomers" (the 14–34 age demographic).[1][36] Addressing this, Loeb said, "It's a love story that happens to have characters that have always traditionally been in that age group. It's not like we took something and made it into a [young adult fiction (YA)]. It speaks to a YA audience and is a YA property. Would I do Punisher on Freeform? I don't think that's going to connect the same way."[37] Pokaski was pleased with the diversity of the writers for the first season, with a majority of black writers and many female writers.[38] The majority of the writers from the first season returned for the second.The second season would explore the themes of women's rights and issues through Mina Hess, while "continuing to drive the conversation forward about race in America".[35]

text: Pokaski spoke about the differences in Cloak and Dagger's origin story from the comics, saying, "I think the original [comic] stories were fantastic, but for the time, while they were a little progressive, they were a little bit sexist and racist once you got into it, for now. What we tried to do was deconstruct it and make it about Tandy and Tyrone, understand who they were."[39] Since the original comics "are a little dated", Pokaski and the writers could to make adjustments accordingly as Cloak and Dagger do not have an established comics mythology, making sure "we were telling the right story for now".[29] He also felt Loeb's idea of having the duo live in New Orleans, opposed to New York City as in the comics, was a "great idea".[39] Since Marvel was also developing The Defenders at the same time, moving to the New Orleans setting "came up pretty early", since Pokaski felt New York City of the Marvel Cinematic Universe had enough superheroes. When looking for alternate locations, and considering places with filming tax incentives, New Orleans "felt so right for Tandy and Tyrone. It felt gothic, it felt a little bit dark, it felt like a place of light and shadow. The more we learned about the city and about its history and about voudon or the Mardi Gras Indians, it felt like it was the only place for Tandy and Tyrone to start."[29]

text: Pokaski did not want to rush the romantic relationship between the duo in the first season, and hoped the series would last long enough to allow for “an interesting path to their relationship.”[4] Pokaski has an intent to create 100 episodes for the series, with "a definitive plan for five season" created.[38]

text: Casting[edit]

text: In January 2017, it was announced that Olivia Holt and Aubrey Joseph had been cast as Tandy Bowen / Dagger and Tyrone Johnson / Cloak, respectively.[3] Gina Prince-Bythewood, the director of the first episode, called the casting process "really, really tough… it was three days before we were supposed to leave [to begin filming] and we didn't find [actors for Tandy and Tyrone]. People started getting willing to settle and the people that were on the table were 27, 28. They felt grown and it didn't feel right for the show. Then Aubrey and Olivia walked in the door, and they had such great chops individually".[39]

text: The following month, Andrea Roth was cast as Melissa Bowen, Tandy's mother;[6] Gloria Reuben and Miles Mussenden were cast as Tyrone's parents, Adina and Otis Johnson;[6][7] and Carl Lundstedt and J. D. Evermore were cast as Liam Walsh and Connors, respectively.[6][8] Emma Lahana and Jaime Zevallos also star as Brigid O'Reilly and Delgado.[9]

text: Filming[edit]

text: Filming for the series takes place in New Orleans,[40][41] with the first season using the working title Shadows.[42] The first season features many hand-held camera shots that established the "look and feel" of the series, in part because Pokaski "didn’t want to wait for a dolly track to be laid".[38]

text: Music[edit]

text: Mark Isham announced in May 2017 that he would compose the music for the series.[43] Multiple songs are featured throughout the first season,[44] some of which were collected and released on a digital soundtrack album on June 8, 2018, by Marvel Music and Hollywood Records.[45][46] An album featuring Isham's score was released digitally on July 6.[47]

text: Marvel Cinematic Universe tie-ins[edit]

text: Freeform executive Karey Burke said in April 2017 that the series is "not particularly connected" to New Warriors, which was slated to air on Freeform at the time, given "their tones are so wildly different", adding, "There are many degrees of separation with where they fall in the Marvel universe. But anything is possible with Marvel."[48] In July, Loeb said there were no plans to crossover, nor to crossover across networks with the similarly themed Marvel's Runaways on Hulu. He added that Marvel wanted the series to find its footing before further connecting with other elements of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, saying "You'll see things that comment on each other; we try to touch base wherever we can... things that are happening in L.A. [where Runaways is set] are not exactly going to be affecting what's happening in New Orleans... It's being aware of it and trying to find a way for it to be able to discuss in a way that makes sense."[49]

text: Ahead of the series premiere, considering the larger events of the MCU at that point, Pokaski said he was "not allowed to talk about" how the series would connect to the events of Avengers: Infinity War but stated "We’ve had some exciting conversations about how we could artfully cross Tandy and Tyrone over [to other Marvel properties]. The beauty of these two is that they can show up anywhere [and it makes sense].”[4] After the first season finale, Pokaski expanded, saying he would "love" to have Tandy and Tyrone appear in the MCU films "as utility players the way they are in comics", but conceded "there are a lot of legal hurdles and corporate barriers to doing that". Regarding a crossover with the Runaways, Pokaski noted "there's hopefully there's some karma we can fulfill there" since the duo in the comics appear early in the Runaways comic series.[35]

text: Release[edit]

text:
Season

Episodes

Originally aired

DVD and Blu-ray release dates

First aired

Last aired

Region 1

Region 2

Region 4

1

10

June 7, 2018 (2018-06-07)

August 2, 2018 (2018-08-02)

TBA

TBA

TBA

2

10[34]

Early 2019[34]

TBD

TBA

TBA

TBA

text: Cloak & Dagger airs in the United States on Freeform and on ABC Spark in Canada,[50][51] while Amazon Video airs the series in the United Kingdom and select additional European countries.[52]

text: Reception[edit]

text:
Season

Nielsen ratings

Critical response

Premiere total viewers(in millions)

Finale total viewers(in millions)

Season average total viewers,inc. DVR (in millions)

Rank

18–49 rating (rank)

Rotten Tomatoes

Metacritic

1

0.919[19]

0.423[27]

TBD

TBD

TBD

90% (41 reviews)[53]

68 (15 reviews)[54]

text: Ratings[edit]

text: Cloak & Dagger had the best series launch on Freeform in two years and Freeform’s most-watched drama since "Till Death Do Us Part", the series finale of Pretty Little Liars in June 2017. After three days, "First Light" had 1.64 million total viewers, which was a 78% increase from its initial viewers, the largest three-day lift for any Freeform debut. "First Light" also had the biggest digital debut ever for the network, with 716,000 starts. The premiere drew 7.3 million views across linear and digital platforms and was Thursday’s most-social scripted series with 112,000 engagements across Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Tumblr.[55]

text: Critical response[edit]

text: For the first season, the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 90% approval rating with an average rating of 7.77/10 based on 41 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Cloak & Dagger blends soapy drama with superhero grit to create an exciting, surprisingly thoughtful addition to the genre — even if it falls prey to a certain amount of narrative bloat."[53] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 68 out of 100 based on reviews from 15 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[54]

text: Analysis[edit]

text: Upon the announcement of the series, Riesman felt one of the show's potential strengths was the fact that Marvel had a unique opportunity to tell a story "without needing to appeal to any kind of rabid fanbase or honor any iconic stories," because the characters have neither "any famous archnemeses," nor "a widely read graphic novel" that fans would be expecting to see. He concluded saying, "Cloak & Dagger could be something unique and potentially lovely: an attempt to build a new bit of filmed superhero iconography (mostly) from the ground up. There’s so much to mine in this genre. It deals metaphorically with the burdens, risks, and liberations of power — and it has the storytelling freedoms offered by high-concept science fiction, fantasy, and magical realism."[56] Pokaski would later tell Riesman in August 2018 that he sent Karey Burke and other executives on the series Riseman's article as encouragement for the direction they were planning to take the series and to know what they released about the series at the time did not sound "like we were blowing smoke".[29]

text: Accolades[edit]

text:
Year

Award

Category

Recipient(s)

Result

Ref(s)

2018

Teen Choice Awards

Choice Summer TV Show

Cloak & Dagger

Nominated

[57]

Choice Summer TV Star

Olivia Holt

Won

Aubrey Joseph

Nominated