"n the fall of 1977, I experimented with a newfangled PC, a Radio Shack TRS-80. For data storage it used - I kid you not - a cassette tape player. Tape had a long history with computing; I had used the IBM 2420 9-track tape system on IBM 360/370 mainframes to load software and to back-up data. Magnetic tape was common for storage in pre-personal computing days, but it had two main annoyances: it held tiny amounts of data, and it was slower than a slug on a cold spring morning. There had to be something better, for those of us excited about technology. And there was: the floppy disk [http://h30565.www3.hp.com/t5/Feature-Articles/The-History-of-the-Floppy-Disk/ba-p/6434]."

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