Floppy

Floppy (pronounced flop-ee)

(1) A tendency to flop.

(2) Limp, flexible, not hard, firm, or rigid; flexible; hanging loosely.

(3) In IT, a clipping of “floppy diskette”.

(4) In historic military slang (Apartheid-era South Africa & Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), an insurgent in the Rhodesian Bush War (the “Second Chimurenga” (from the Shona chimurenga (revolution)) 1964-1979), the use a reference to the way they were (in sardonic military humor) said to “flop” when shot.

(5) In informal use, a publication with covers made with a paper stock little heavier and more rigid that that used for the pages; Used mostly for comic books.

(6) In slang, a habitué of a flop-house (a cheap hotel, often used as permanent or semi-permanent accommodation by the poor or itinerant who would go there to “flop down” for a night) (archaic).

(7) In slang, as “floppy cats”, the breeders’ informal term for the ragdoll breed of cat, so named for their propensity to “go limp” when picked up (apparently because of a genetic mutation).

1855-1860: The construct was flop + -y.  Flop dates from 1595–1605 and was a variant of the verb “flap” (with the implication of a duller, heavier sound).  Flop has over the centuries gained many uses in slang and idiomatic form but in this context it meant “loosely to swing; to flap about”.  The sense of “fall or drop heavily” was in use by the mid-1830s and it was used to mean “totally to fail” in 1919 in the wake of the end of World War I (1914-1918), the conflict which wrote finis to the dynastic rule of centuries also of the Romanovs in Russia, the Habsburgs in Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans in Constantinople although in the 1890s it was recorded as meaning “some degree of failure”.  The comparative is floppier, the superlative floppiest.  Floppy a noun & adjective, floppiness is a noun, flopped is a noun & verb, flopping is a verb, floppier& floppiest are adjectives and floppily is an adverb; the noun plural is floppies.  The adjective floppish is non-standard and used in the entertainment & publishing industries to refer to something which hasn’t exactly “flopped” (failed) but which had not fulfilled the commercial expectations.

Lindsay Lohan in "floppy-brim" hat, on-set during filming of Liz & Dick (2012).  In fashion, many "floppy-brim" hats actually have a stiff brim, formed in a permanently "floppy" shape.  The true "floppy hats" are those worn while playing sport or as beachwear etc.

The word is used as a modifier in pediatric medicine (floppy baby syndrome; floppy infant syndrome) and as “floppy-wristed” (synonymous with “limp-wristed”) was used as a gay slur.  “Flippy-floppy” was IT slang for “floppy diskette” and unrelated to the previous use of “flip-flop” or “flippy-floppy” which, dating from the 1880s was used to mean “a complete reversal of direction or change of position” and used in politics to suggest inconsistency.  In the febrile world of modern US politics, to be labelled a “flip-flopper” can be damaging because it carries with it the implication what one says can’t be relied upon and campaign “promises” might thus not be honored.  Whether that differs much from the politicians’ usual behaviour can be debated but still, few enjoy being accused of flip-floppery (definitely a non-standard noun).  The classic rejoinder to being called a flip-flopper is the quote: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”  That’s often attributed to the English economist and philosopher Lord Keynes (John Maynard Keynes, 1883-1946) but it was said originally by US economist Paul Samuelson (1915–2009) the 1970 Nobel laureate in Economics.  In the popular imagination Keynes is often the “go to” economist for quote attribution in the way William Shakespeare (1564–1616) is a “go to author” and Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) a “go to politician”, both credited with thing they never said but might have said.  I phraseology, the quality of “Shakespearian” or “Churchillian” not exactly definable but certainly recognizable.  In the jargon of early twentieth century electronics, a “flip-flop” was a reference to switching circuits that alternate between two states.

Childless cat lady Taylor Swift with her “floppy cat”, Benjamin Button (as stole).  Time magazine cover, 25 December 2023, announcing Ms Swift as their 2023 Person of the Year.  "Floppy cat" is the the breeders' informal term for the ragdoll breed an allusion to their tendency to “go limp” when picked up, a behavior believed caused by a genetic mutation.

The other use of flop in IT is the initialism FLOP (floating point operations per second).  Floating-point (FB) arithmetic (FP) a way of handling big real numbers using an integer with a fixed precision, scaled by an integer exponent of a fixed base; FP doesn’t really make possible what would not in theory be achievable using real numbers but does make this faster and practical and the concept became familiar in the 1980s when Intel made available FPUs (floating point units, also known as math co-processors) which could supplement the CPUs (central processing units) of their x86 family.  The 8087 FPU worked with the 8086 CPU and others followed (80286/80287, 80386/80387, i486/i487 etc) until eventually the FPU for the Pentium range was integrated into the CPU, the early implementation something of a debacle still used as a case study in a number of fields departments including management and public relations.

FLOPs are an expression of specific performance and are used to measure those computations requiring floating-point calculations (typically in math-intensive work) and for purposes of “benchmarking” or determining “real-world” performance under those conditions, it’s a more informative number than the traditional rating of instructions per second (iSec).  The FLOPs became something of a cult in the 1990s when the supercomputers of the era first breached the trillion FLOP mark and as speeds rose, the appropriate terms were created:

kiloFLOPS: (kFLOPS, 10³)
megaflops: (MFLOPS, 10⁶)
gigaflops: GFLOPS, 10⁹)
teraflops: TFLOPS, 10¹²)
petaFLOPS: PFLOPS, 10¹⁵)
exaFLOPS: (EFLOPS, 10¹⁸)
zettaFLOPS: ZFLOPS, 10²¹)
yottaFLOPS: YFLOPS, 10²⁴)
ronnaFLOPS: RFLOPS, 10²⁷)
quettaFLOPS: QFLOPS, 10³⁰)

In the mysterious world of quantum computing, FLOPs are not directly applicable because the architecture and methods of operation differ fundamentally from those of classical computers.  Rather than FLOPs, the performance of quantum computers tends to be measured in qubits (quantum bits) and quantum gates (the operations that manipulate qubits).  The architectural difference is profound and explained with the concepts of superposition and entanglement:  Because a qubit simultaneously can represent both “0” & “1” (superposition) and these can be can be entangled (a relationship in which distance is, at least in theory, irrelevant), under such multi-string parallelism, performance cannot easily be reduced to simple arithmetic or floating-point operations which remain the domain of classical computers which operate using the binary distinction between “0” (off) and “1” (on).

Evolution of the floppy diskette: 8 inch (left), 5¼ inch (centre) & 3½ inch (right).  The track of the floppy for the past half-century has been emblematic of the IT industry in toto: smaller, higher capacity and cheaper.  Genuinely it was one of the design parameters for the 3½ inch design that it fit into a man's shirt pocket.

In IT, the term “floppy diskette” used the WORM (write once, read many, ie "read only" after being written) principle first appeared in 1971 (soon doubtless clipped to “floppy” although the first known use of this dates from 1974).  The first floppy diskettes were in an 8 inch (2023 mm) format which may sound profligate for something with a capacity of 80 kB (kilobyte) but the 10-20 MB (megabit) hard drives of the time were typically the same diameter as the aperture of domestic front-loading washing machine so genuinely they deserved the diminutive suffix (-ette, from the Middle English -ette, a borrowing from the Old French -ette, from the Latin -itta, the feminine form of -ittus.  It was used to form nouns meaning a smaller form of something).  They were an advance also in convenience because until they became available, the usual way to transfer files between devices was to hard-wire them together.  Introduced by IBM in 1971, the capacity was two years later raised to 256 kB and by 1977 to a heady 1.2 MB (megabyte) with the advent of a double-sided, double-density format.  However, even then it was obvious the future was physically smaller media and in 1978 the 5¼ inch (133 mm) floppy debuted, initially with a formatted capacity of 360 kB but by 1982 this too had be raised to 1.2 MB using the technological advance if a HD (high density) file system and it was the 5¼ floppy which would become the first widely adopted industry “standard” for both home and business use, creating the neologism “sneakernet”, the construct being sneaker + net(work), the image being of IT nerds in their jeans and sneakers walking between various (unconnected) computers and exchanging files via diskette.  Until well into the twenty-first century the practice was far from functionally extinct and it persists even today with the use of USB sticks.

Kim Jong-un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011) with 3½ inch floppy diskette (believed to be a HD (1.44 MB)).

The meme-makers use the floppy because it has become a symbol of technological bankruptcy. In OS (operating system) GUIs (graphical user interface) however, it does endure as the "save" icon and all the evidence to date does suggest that symbolic objects like icons do tend to outlive their source, thus the ongoing use in IT of analogue, rotary dial phones in iconography and the sound of a camera's physical shutter in smart phones.  Decades from now, we may still see representations of floppy diskettes.

The last of the mainstream floppy diskettes was the 3½ inch (89 mm) unit, introduced in 1983 in double density form with a capacity of 720 KB (although in one of their quixotic moves IBM used a unique 360 kB version for their JX range aimed at the educational market) but the classic 3½ was the HD 1.44 MB unit, released in 1986.  That really was the end of the line for the format because although in 1987 a 2.88 MB version was made available, few computer manufacturers offered the gesture of adding support at the BIOS (basic input output system) so adoption was infinitesimal.  The 3½ inch diskette continued in wide use and there was even the DMF (Distribution Media Format) with a 1.7 MB capacity which attracted companies like Microsoft, not because it wanted more space but to attempt to counter software piracy; within hours of Microsoft Office appearing in shrink-wrap with, copying cracks appeared on the bulletin boards (where nerds did stuff before the www (worldwideweb).  It was clear the floppy diskette was heading for extinction although slighter larger versions with capacities as high as 750 MB did appear but, expensive and needing different drive hardware, they were only ever a niche product seen mostly inside corporations.  By the time the CD-ROM (Compact Disc-Read-only Memory) reached critical mass in the mid-late 1990s the once ubiquitous diskette began rapid to fade from use, the release in the next decade of the USB sticks (pen drives) a final nail in the coffin for most.

In the mid 1990s, installing OS/2 Warp 4.0 (Merlin) with the optional packs and a service pack could require a user to insert and swap up to 47 diskettes.  It could take hours, assuming one didn't suffer the dreaded "floppy failure".

That was something which pleased everyone except the floppy diskette manufacturers who had in the early 1990s experienced a remarkable boom in demand for their product when Microsoft Windows 3.1 (7 diskettes) and IBM’s OS/2 2.0 (21 diskettes) were released. Not only was the CD-ROM a cheaper solution than multiple diskettes (a remarkably labor-intensive business for software distributors) but it was also much more reliable, tales of an installation process failing on the “final diskette” legion and while some doubtlessly were apocryphal, "floppy failure" was far from unknown.  By the time OS/2 Warp 3.0 was released in 1994, it required a minimum of 23 floppy diskettes and version 4.0 shipped with a hefty 30 for a base installation.  Few mourned the floppy diskette and quickly learned to love the CD-ROM.

What lay inside a 3½ inch floppy diskette.

Unlike optical discs (CD-ROM, DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) & Blu-Ray) which were written and read with the light of a laser, floppy diskettes were read with magnetic heads.  Inside the vinyl sleeve was a woven liner impregnated with a lubricant, this to reduce friction on the spinning media and help keep the surfaces clean.

Curiously though, niches remained where the floppy lived on and it was only in 2019 the USAF (US Air Force) finally retired the use of floppy diskettes which since the 1970s had been the standard method for maintaining and distributing the data related to the nation’s nuclear weapons deployment.  The attractions of the system for the military were (1) it worked, (2) it was cheap and (3) it was impervious to outside tampering.  Global thermo-nuclear war being a serious business, the USAF wanted something secure and knew that once data was on a device in some way connected to the outside world there was no way it could be guaranteed to be secure from those with malign intent (ayatollahs, the Secret Society of the Les Clefs d'Or, the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), the Freemasons, those in the Kremlin or Pyongyang et al) whereas a diskette locked in briefcase or a safe was, paradoxically, the state of twenty-first century security, the same philosophy which has seen some diplomatic posts in certain countries revert to typewriters & carbon paper for the preparation of certain documents.  In 2019 however, the USAF announced that after much development, the floppies had been retired and replaced with what the Pentagon described as a “highly-secure solid-state digital storage solution which work with the Strategic Automated Command and Control System (SACCS).”

It can still be done: Although no longer included in PCs & laptops, USB floppy diskette drives remain available (although support for Windows 11 systems is said to be "inconsistent").  Even 5¼ inch units have been built.

It thus came as a surprise in 2024 to learn Japan, the nation which had invented motorcycles which didn’t leak oil (the British though they’d proved that couldn’t be done) and the QR (quick response) code, finally was abandoning the floppy diskette.  Remarkably, even in 2024, the government of Japan still routinely asked corporations and citizens to submit documents on floppies, over 1000 statutes and regulations mandating the format.  The official in charge of updating things (in 2021 he’d “declared war” on floppy diskettes) in July 2024 announced “We have won the war on floppy disks!” which must have be satisfying because he’d earlier been forced to admit defeat in his attempt to defenestrate the country’s facsimile (fax) machines, the “pushback” just too great to overcome.  The news created some interest on Japanese social media, one tweet on X (formerly known as Twitter) damning the modest but enduring floppy as a “symbol of an anachronistic administration”, presumably as much a jab at the “tired old men” of the ruling LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) as the devices.  There may however been an element of technological determinism in the reform because Sony, the last manufacturer of the floppy, ended production of them in 2011 so while many remain extant, the world’s supply is dwindling.  In some ways so modern and innovative, in other ways Japanese technology sometimes remains frozen, many businesses still demanding official documents to be endorsed using carved personal stamps called the印鑑 (ikan) or 判子 (hanko); despite the government's efforts to phase them out, their retirement is said to be proceeding at a “glacial pace”.  The other controversial aspect of the hanko is that the most prized are carved from ivory and it’s believed a significant part of the demand for black-market ivory comes from the hanko makers, most apparently passing through Hong Kong, for generations a home to “sanctions busters”.