Dictionary

floptical en · ADJ

Etymology

Blend of floppy (“floppy disk, a magnetic data storage device”) + optical.

Meanings

1. (not-comparable, qualifier:data storage) Using a combination of magnetic and optical technology.
   • Alternatives to tape and CD-R include floptical disks, Bernoulli boxes, and other removable drives. 2006, Vicki Stanfield, Roderick W. Smith, Linux System Administration, page 270:
   • Optical technology appears in many forms of devices, starting from CD-ROM (Compact Disk Read Only Memory) disks, to floptical disk (optical floppy disks) to very high capacity (up to 20 GB) optical disks. 2004, S. Sadagopan, Management Information Systems, page 62:
   • 1993 June 21, advertisement, InfoWorld, page 12, Floptical technology is a practical and affordable way to increase your storage capacity— without giving up the convenience of diskettes.

Forms

floptical en · NOUN

Etymology

Blend of floppy (“floppy disk, a magnetic data storage device”) + optical.

Meanings

1. A floptical disk.
   • Flopticals, once promising, have mostly been shoved aside by improvements in capacity and price for older designs that are still around and new devices, such as the Zip and SuperDisk LS-120 drives. 2007, Corey Sandler, chapter 11, in Fix Your Own PC, page 5:
   • Like floppy drives on steroids, flopticals use laser optics to store up to 21MB of data on one 3½-inch disk. The advantages of flopticals are a low buy-in cost ($400 and under) and the convenience of using the drive for your current library of 1.44MB and 720K disks (as well as IBM′s 2.88MB disks). 1995, Eric Knorr, The PC Bible, page 74:
   • You said you are using flopticals in your sound studio? Is that where you use it mostly? 1997, Lee Purcell, David Martin, The Complete Recordable-CD Guide, page 461:

Forms

Relateds

floptical drive · floptical disk