High density magnetic recording on a mini flexible disk drive

Small flexible disk drives have developed in a few years from 48 TPI (tracks per inch) single density, 125 kbyte products to 96 TPI double density, two-sided drives with 1 megabyte of capacity. The trend is toward more tracks per inch, with the industry goal currently at 144 TPI. The paper describes the technology that has been developed to make 144 TPI possible. This paper will discuss the evolution of drive technology, and point out some of the areas that still need work in order for 144 TPI to become a reality.