Why are disks called drives?

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.trivia (More info?)

We all commonly use the terms "floppy drive" and "hard drive" when
referring to disks. But why do we use the term "drives" for these
disks? Anyone know the origin of this? I understand why they are
called "disks" instead of "platters", but the origin of calling them
"drives" eludes me.

Someone asked me this today and I have no idea what the actual answer
is. Probably some archaic reference, like why we call errors in
programs "bugs" thanks to people like Thomas Edison and (Rear Admiral)
Grace Hopper.

Any help is appreciated.

swp

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.trivia (More info?)

In article <1112801282.710581.236550@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>, DSAsteve@aol.com
says...
> We all commonly use the terms "floppy drive" and "hard drive" when
> referring to disks. But why do we use the term "drives" for these
> disks? Anyone know the origin of this? I understand why they are
> called "disks" instead of "platters", but the origin of calling them
> "drives" eludes me.
>
> Someone asked me this today and I have no idea what the actual answer
> is. Probably some archaic reference, like why we call errors in
> programs "bugs" thanks to people like Thomas Edison and (Rear Admiral)
> Grace Hopper.

I don'r pretend to be authoratative about this, but I was there
in the old days before Wincheter disks and other sealed devices,
and there was an obvious distinction between media and the devices
that "drive" them, that impel them to move. We used to switch disk
packs in washing machine-like devices that could hold 300MB (a huge
capacity at that time).

Today, with floppy discs, CD-*, DVD-*, ZIP, and various sequential
tape storage media, the distinction between a medium and the device
that accesses the medium remains, even if we can no longer see it
with sealed hard drives.

--
Go to http://MarcDashevsky.com to send me e-mail.