[karmakaze]

I remember it the same way. But then if floppies are diskettes, what's the non-'ette' disk referring to?

DASD Direct-access storage device[0]

Disk Pack[1] perhaps?

Answer seems to be the 8" floppy disk[2] which only IBM called "Diskette-1" and 5-1/4" ones called mini-diskettes, floppy diskettes, etc.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-access_storage_device

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_pack

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk#8-inch_floppy_disk

[dragonwriter]

> But then if floppies are diskettes, what's the non-'ette' disk referring to

Fixed disks (which were also quite large at the time.) Floppies were removable disks, like cassettes; disk + cassette = diskettes, also disk + dimunitive -ette = diskette.

[kgwgk]

Note that removable hard disks and hard disk cartridges were also a thing.

[kgwgk]

So you think diskette was derived from disk, where disk refers to “8-inch floppy disk introduced by IBM under the name of diskette”?

https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/vintage/vintage_450...

I’d say IBM called floppy disks diskettes by opposition to hard disks, which were huge at that time:

https://www.computerhistory.org/storageengine/winchester-pio...

[karmakaze]

No IBM person would say hard disk, it was always DASD. I suspect that the 'hard' prefix gained usage after the introduction of floppies.

[kgwgk]

I don't say they were called hard disks. They were called disks (DASD is the whole device, not just the storage disk). And of course they were hard!

And then they introduced little disks (a 8-inch floppy was small and light compared to existing disks) and called them diskettes.

[karmakaze]

Yeah, it's probably relative, I've rarely used disks larger than the 8" floppies so would never call them diskettes, the 5 1/4" were commonly called that in my circles. In IBM circles of the time they'd have a different default scale.

Like I remember being surprised the first time I heard someone refer to AA batteries as the big kind.

[kgwgk]

But you didn't come up with the name Diskette, IBM did when they created the floppy disk :-)

That's highly relevant if the question is "what's the non-'ette' disk referring to".