I heard some people say theyre the same thing, but others are adamant that they have different meanings. Which is it?
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/disk
In most varieties of English, disk is the preferred spelling for magnetic media (hence floppy disk, hard disk, disk drive), whereas disc is preferred for optical media (hence compact disc, digital versatile disc, optical disc). For all other uses, disk is preferred in American English and acceptable in Canadian English, and disc otherwise.
Less commonly, disc is used for magnetic media (as in floppy disc and discette; similarly, disk is sometimes used for optical media, as in compact disk and optical disk.
The reason for this is actually pretty interesting though. Historically it was just a US/UK English difference, but it evolved into both being used because one of the first big manufacturers of optical discs, Philips, called them discs, while the US-based IBM spelled their magnetic disks with a K.
You’ve exceeded my “learning cool stuff” limit today. Thank you. Now I can’t retain any other information.
Disk is for things that are more kiki, but disc, with that rounded off c, is for things that are more bouba.
What about disq?
IYKYK.
Disc is short for discus.
Disk is short for diskette, the square things some discs are kept in.
Isn’t a diskette just a small version of a disk? Much like kitchenette to kitchen
I don’t think so https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk
To quote from your source:
8-inch floppy disk, inserted in drive, (3½-inch floppy diskette, in front, shown for scale)
Get outta here with your actual helpful answer
A CD is a disk that is disc shaped.
Perhaps it’s just a leftover marketing motif?
"The spelling disk and disc are used interchangeably except where trademarks preclude one usage, e.g., the Compact Disc logo. The choice of a particular form is frequently historical, as in IBM’s usage of the disk form beginning in 1956 with the “IBM 350 disk storage unit”. "
Everything on the left is a drive, but only half of them are disks:
Hard Disk Drive
USB pen drive
Floppy Disk Drive
Solid State Drive
I’ve been known to use them interchangeably.
It’s British English (disc) vs American English (disk).
Edit: I present the Sony Portable Hard Disc Drive
Has nothing to do with country. Discs are round objects. In the computing sense that’s cds, dvds, etc.
Disks are floppy disks(diskette, “discette” never existed as a word) , hard drive disks… etc. There is a difference and it has nothing to do with what land you’re in. Disk in usa never meant a circular object like a Frisbee (discus for example)
I think they got that from Wikipedia
Jerboa won’t let me post a screenshot right now but here’s a link
But the floppy diskette and the “hard disks” did in fact have circular discs inside that spin around.
I suspect that the word diskette was created as an analog to tape “cassette”. With both diskette and cassette, the media is stored inside an enclosure, and you don’t have to take it out manually.
“-Ette” is a common diminutive used to imply that something is a smaller version of something else. Like many things, we nicked it from the French.
Cigarette, a little cigar. Featurette, a short feature. Novelette, a miniature novel. Etc.
So, diskette, a little disk. Quite separate from the ones spinning in your company’s mainframe at the time. Those ones were two feet in diameter locked in a steel cabinet that weighs two tons. This one can fit in your shirt pocket. You get the idea.
It’s from diskette. Not about what country the spelling is from.
Prepare to have your mind blown.
Portable Hard Disc Drive https://pro.sony/en_GB/products/portable-storage/psz-hb-b-series
I don’t doubt the diskette comment since it’s an American invention. But sometimes this nuance shows up.
They’re all the same word at their core, evolving from the older Latin word. The difference just comes in how the words were used to describe either a computer related device, hard disk, floppy disk, or a sound carrying device, disc record, compact disc.
At its root this was originally a British vs. American English thing. However, the spelling of “disc” with a C has been used specifically as the trade name of various brands including both the throwable and optical media varieties, which have since become genericized trademarks.
For the optical media side of things, the name was coined by Phillips while they were consorting with Sony to develop the standard and named it the “Compact Disc” to compliment their already existing “Compact Cassette” product. They developed an official logo for the format which spelled it “disc.” That’s been with us ever since.
Volumes of computer storage are now colloquially referred to as “disks” because A) a significant majority of the early computer development milieu in general happened in America where we, or at least IBM, spell it with a K, and B) for a very long time, that’s exactly what they were. Tape and magnetic core memory and wire loop memory were all early developments that ultimately gave way to the longstanding popularity of magnetic platter/disk fixed storage… With some exception granted to tape, which hung around for a very long time but definitely was not a random access storage medium suitable for general purpose applications whereas disks were. It’s probably pure happenstance that the dominant non-fixed computer storage media also wound up being disk shaped, namely the various sizes and types of floppy disks. Computers handle linear tape based storage and random access disk based storage very differently, and nowadays random access permanent storage still has the “disk” moniker stuck to it even though it’s now likely to be solid state.
As a generalized descriptor of a flat circular object, either “disk” or “disc” is appropriate but which is preferred seems to be largely depending on which continent you’re from. The root of the word is indeed the Greek “discus,” as in the object yeeted across the playing field by Olympic contestants.
Disc and disk are varient spellings of the same word that pre-exist computing. Disc is more common in British English, Disk more common in American English. But yeah since computing came along disk has also been used more for magnetic media (hard disk) while disc has been used more for optical media (compact disc). I wouldn’t be surprised if this only happened because of how the CD was marketed and branded as a “compact disc” as a trademark while hard disks and floppy disks etc were more generic terms.
As others have said and how I always see it:
- Discs are small, circular, flat objects, e.g. the discus;
- Disks are discs used for computer stuff, e.g. floppy disk(ettes), CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, hard disks, and so forth…
In other words, all disks are discs, but not all discs are disks.
Here’s a shitty drawing I made to illustrate:
But…
I was wondering how CD-RW works, if anyone else wants to know:
https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/question655.htm
They have a layer that can change between clear and opaque that is changed by having different temperatures applied to it.
upvoted for your spiffy drawing, although i don’t agree with it
Lol, thanks.
What about my distinction do you disagree with, though?
I don’t think the differentiation makes any sense at all.
edit: to clarify-- this isn’t a criticism of the op’s sketch; i just don’t think any attempt makes sense
my attempt to simplify the above explanation; -disc =round -disk =storage
Storage can be round but not all round things are storage
But that doesn’t cover the round storage we call compact discs. It’s just nonsensical
I mean to me compact disc sounds like small and round. Just happens to also be storage media 🤷♂️
Its a disk when its magnetic, disc when optical.
The way to remember it is that its disk because its magnetik.
Is a VHS tape a disk then?
No, that’s a tape. It has to be dis(c/k) shaped to be a disk.
the tape spooled up on the reel inside a VHS looks like a thi(c/k) dis(c/k)
thic(k/c)
What if it’s optikal?
I cannot stress enough how efficiently you ruined my ability to use the memory trick.
Just remember the c in disc is shaped like a magnet.
Is a plate optical or magnetic?
Depends on how you store data on it. If you write with a pen its optical.
Disc = round
Disk = rectangular
This is correct in most cases but I don’t think it’s the underlying principle.
This wiki talks about the etymology, with a lot of examples. Most conform to this rule, but there are exceptions in astrophysics like an accretion disk.
Even in info tech, “hard disk” doesn’t really conform to this rule. Like is a hard disk a square hard drive or is it the round thing inside? If it’s the square hard drive, that’s not thin enough to be a “disk”. I’d it’s the round thing inside that would be hard disc, but also creates problems for floppy disk because why refer to the housing in one instance but not another.
Sadly, I think the correct answer is that either refers to a thin flat thing, some spellings are preferred for some uses.
til disk is actually preferred in American English. from your link:
Usage notes
In most varieties of English, disk is the preferred spelling for magnetic media (hence floppy disk, hard disk, disk drive), whereas disc is preferred for optical media (hence compact disc, digital versatile disc, optical disc). For all other uses, disk is preferred in American English and acceptable in Canadian English, and disc otherwise.
Find me an American who says his car is equipped with “disk brakes.” “Disk” is peculiar to computer magnetic storage media, and “disc” for a round object that probably spins.
Wikipedia tells me that they were initially developed in England and finally patented in Germany, so I’m guessing that’s why the British spelling is used in that case.
sir, this is lemmy shitpost. Here’s a citation for thinkin too hard, don’t let it happen again.
Same word. Different dialects.
Disk is short for diskette
And disc is short for discotheque.
^not really^
