If Zip/Jaz/etc. magnetic media can store hundreds of megabytes or even gigabytes of data on an exposed 3 1/2" platter, why not make the platters 5 1/4"?
The flexible jacket design used on old-fashioned 5 1/4" floppies could be adopted, the reduction in thickness more than making up for the increased surface area.-- clothist, Jun 02 2003 (??) 128MB so small you could swallow it (please don't try) http://www.istick.bizCaution slow site. 1.3MB Win98 driver took > 2 hrs over broadband; link fixed now [FloridaManatee, Oct 04 2004] (?) Imation SuperDisks http://www.imation.....jhtml?Id=IM_FAM122120M in the exact same format as a 3 1/2" floppy. [krelnik, Oct 04 2004] I'd make it rigid -- I don't know how many times I've lost a C64 disk due to a crease.
Crossaint for the useful juxtaposition of old and new technology.-- Almafeta, Jun 02 2003 Could I use a hole punch to knock out a corner so I could flip it over and use the other side?-- Cedar Park, Jun 02 2003 While the concept is nostalgic, I really, really don't like the idea of flexible media in a flexible jacket. In order to read/write data at a very high density, the head must be exceedingly close and warping of the media would not be helpful.
The way to go is optical for cheap, fixed storage, email for distance and chips for face to face file exchange.
In fact, I have an adapter for a Smart flash disk into a floppy drive. At the time when it came out, I was limited to a 64MB flash, but hey, that's over 44x the capacity of a regular floppy. The problem was that it needed a driver to run under Win 98.
Today, I have a 43x18x2.5mm flash chip that stores 128MB fits and runs as a removable drive plugged directly into a USB without adapter or driver. It's about a gazillion times faster than FDD too. For higher capacity transfers I have an old laptop HDD run through a $8 USB case. My latest computer has a completely virgin FDD (HDD was preloaded with WinXP).
With today's technology why on earth would anyone want a FDD, let alone a 5.25" drive....
...except to play emulated Apple II games of course!-- FloridaManatee, Jun 02 2003 Somewhat baked. A few years ago a company came out with 120 Megabyte disks that used the exact same form factor as 3 1/2" floppy disks, and would also read those as well. A couple of the PC vendors including at least one major one (Compaq? I don't recall) were shipping these drives for a time. See link.
I guess demand for these was not great (probably due to all the alternative solutions mentioned by others here) because if you follow any link on that page you see this: "We have discontinued the sale of our Imation SuperDisk™ 120MB drives. However, you can still receive product support for SuperDisk 120MB diskettes and Imation SuperDisk drives."-- krelnik, Jun 03 2003 [Florida]: Please fix the link. It's ker-busted.-- Cedar Park, Jun 03 2003 UnaBubba: At what cost?-- Almafeta, Jun 03 2003 I store lots of files on CD, probably will get a DVD burner for even more storage.
I think a Laserdisc, redesigned to store data with the same density as a DVD, would make an impressive storage device, especially in RW form.
Bring back the large floppy? Well, aren't CDs about the same size, with fewer limitations? I use an old floppy storage box to hold my data CDs...-- whlanteigne, Jun 03 2003 random, halfbakery