[sempron64]

1.44MB floppies were introduced in 1987, which is 37 years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_floppy_disk#Evo...

[rmason]

I wondered about that myself. Thought perhaps it was possible they were in Japan for over a decade, perhaps at quite a high price, until Apple introduced them to America. Thanks for the post, the reporter got it wrong.

[rasz]

In US :)

Epson started making SD-560 5.25" HD drives in 1983.

In 1985 3.5" 1.44HD floppy drive was $145 in Japan and NEC was shipping those inside PC-8801 mkII MR.

In 1988 NEC was selling PC-88 VA3 with 'Triple' or '2TD' format 3.5" floppy sporting 13MB unformatted 9MB formatted capacity.