Booting IBM PC from vinyl

[Chuck(G)]

There's a unit on eBay now for USD$350. I suppose one might call this the first floppy disk. According to the commentary, foldable, too--try that with your favorite 8" floppy.

[krebizfan]

Plenty of people have managed to fold a floppy; it just doesn't work when unfolded. The magnetic coated paper Brush Mail-A-Disc which Timex licensed may have been easier to fold but probably suffers drop-outs at the fold rendering it unacceptable for computer data storage usage. https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/brush_...k_503bk50.html indicates a recording time of 3 minutes which would not be enough to store a 64 kB disk image.

[Chuck(G)]

Sure, but for nearly 70 year old technology, it was remarkable. Somewhere, there's a recording of the thing being used--it's not exactly high-fidelity. There was another system that used a grooved disk as well, but not foldable.

On the other hand, in 1953, how much core did the average mainframe have?

[pgru2]

Hmm this devices look like that have external speaker. But when connected to cassette port - what it should be called in IBM 5150 computers era? Floppy cassette (Flopcas)? Audiofloppy disk (like VIdeo Floppy disk)? Audiodiskette?

[Eudimorphodon]

That magnetic record bears an eerie resemblance to "3M Sound Page" system from the 1970's. (The latter is just "flipped"; the recording medium stays in one place while the recording head both moves inward and rotates in a spiral motion. I don't know how well that would take to having its pages folded, however...)