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the floppy disk

The floppy disk: why the 'save' icon is a thing most kids have never seen

Japan's government only stopped requiring floppy disks in 2024.

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The real story

In 2021 Japan's Digital Minister Taro Kono declared war on the floppy disk. More than 1,000 government procedures still required businesses to submit data on disks and other physical media. The last of those rules was scrapped on 28 June 2024, and Kono announced: 'We have won the war on floppy disks!'

The 3.5-inch disk's famous '1.44 MB' is itself a small mess. It actually holds 1,474,560 bytes, which is 1.44 × 1,000 × 1,024, a mix of decimal and binary units that is neither a true megabyte nor a true mebibyte. Its shape lived on as the 'save' icon, so a generation now clicks a picture of an object many of them have never held.

What the narrator says

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The facts we checked

  • A standard 3.5-inch floppy disk held 1.44 MB
  • Floppies have mostly disappeared, but their shape is still the 'save' icon in much software

Sources

We checked every number and date on screen before the video was made.

Made by teodolist studio

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