If your computer uses storage manufactured by Seagate, you’re a customer of Alan Shugart’s company. He was the inventor of floppy magnetic disks and disk drives for computers, and went on to found Seagate Technology Corporation. Shugart’s floppy disks are now a relic of an era when you had to make multiple backup copies of your data because floppies often became corrupted. However, quality floppy disks are still readable, if you can find that rare piece of vintage hardware – a floppy disk drive.

20th-century connoisseur geeks and hackers sought out the disks used to distribute OEM software for their superior reliability and longevity. After wiping the original data, the disks could be used for personal needs for years to come. Some disks were copy-protected by using a laser beam to etch hard to imitate defects into the media. Copy protection technology checked for expected read errors to determine the authenticity of the disk.

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