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<div>That's hilarious! It also reminds me of an old tagline:</div>
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<div>2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.</div>
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<div>So, what is the outer width of a 5.25 inch device? (I know, I could just go measure a CD/DVD drive, but I'm not near a raw drive right now.)</div>
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<div>Yes, your comments are correct as to how these misquoted dimensions came about. As for lumber, which is badly misquoted in the other direction (especially the ubiquitous 2x4), I once heard an explanation for that, but have forgotten it. Anyone know? (Definitely on topic. I may want to build a computer rack out of lumber. [grin])</div>
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<div>Hartmut Sager</div>
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<div class="gmail_quote">On 21 January 2013 15:18, Adam Thompson <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:athompso@athompso.net" target="_blank">athompso@athompso.net</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT:#ccc 1px solid;MARGIN:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;PADDING-LEFT:1ex" class="gmail_quote">Ever double-check an assumption, only to find it false, and feel like the rug just got yanked out from under your feet?<br>
<br>Go measure the width of a so-called 3.5" hard drive. Yeah, go ahead. It's 4" wide. Now go measure the width of a so-called 2.5" hard drive. Uh-huh... it's 2.75" wide. I just (re-?)discovered that and felt just as cheated as when I found out that the nominal sizes of dimensional lumber are complete B.S.!<br>
<br>I knew this once upon a time, but I guess I forgot... 5.25" & 3.5" refer to the fact that it fits into the bay where you would have been able to fit a floppy drive accommodating the corresponding-size floppy disk. I can't find any derivation for why we call a 2.75" drive a 2.5" drive, since there's no such thing as a 2.5" floppy[1]! Perhaps the internal platter is 2.5" wide?<br>
<br>(See: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive#Form_factors" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive#Form_factors</a>)<br><br>-Adam<br><br><br>[1] OK, yes, there a 2.5" floppy did exist briefly, but it was never any sort of standard and I've never seen one in person AFAIK. FYI, the Sony micro-floppy format was not 2.5", it was 90mm (closer to 2", anyway).<br>
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