Editing Floptical (section)

{{Short description|Type of floppy disk drive}}
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[[File:Floptical disk 21MB.jpg|right|thumb|The 21&nbsp;MB Floptical {{frac|3|1|2}}-inch disk]]
'''Floptical''' refers to a type of floppy [[disk drive]] that combines magnetic and optical technologies to store data on media similar to standard {{frac|3|1|2}}-inch [[floppy disk]]s. The name is a [[portmanteau]] of the words "floppy" and "optical". It refers specifically to one brand of drive and disk system, but is also used more generically to refer to any system using similar techniques.

The original Floptical technology was announced in 1988<ref name="Webber_1988_Insite"/><ref name="Kotkin_1988_Insite"/><ref name="Brownstein_1988_Insite"/> and introduced late in 1991{{citation needed|date=June 2017|reason=As the product was announced in 1988 to be marketted in 1989, we need a reliable sources (ideally user comments) for the actual date when it entered the market}} by [[Insite Peripherals]], a [[Venture capital|venture funded]] company set up by Jim Adkisson, one of the key engineers behind the original {{frac|5|1|4}}-inch floppy disk drive development at [[Shugart Associates]] in 1976. The main shareholders were [[Maxell]], [[Iomega]] and [[3M]]. This original format normally held 21&nbsp;MB of data, compared to the contemporary 3.5" floppy capacity of 720&nbsp;kB or 1.44&nbsp;MB.

Over the next several years, similar products were introduced by other companies with ever increasing capacity, eventually reaching 240&nbsp;MB in some systems. All of these, along with competing systems like the [[Zip drive]], were replaced by writable [[CD-ROM]]s in many roles, and later, by [[thumb drive]]s which were simpler, smaller, and faster.