C drive

[okaeri_man]

i was just thinking, why is the C drive called the C drive? then i realised it must be c for computer, but then i thought that's pretty stupid. i mean if that's the case, why is the A drive for floppy disks?

then i thought what they should be called instead.
A: the hard disk drive, which is currently the c drive. it's the primary drive, so it gets the first letter of the alphabet.
B: for USB disks.
C: for CD's, which is currently the d drive.
D: for floppy disks, which is currently the a drive.
E+: whatever else

 

[TwistedMac]

harddrive wasn't always the main storeage system.. there was a time when all we had were floppies of different kinds...

think about that for a moment.. ever noticed how B: is never used anymore?..

have you youngsters ever even seen B drive floppy? the big ...floppy ones...

 

[Grandpa Frank]

Floppy's Are The Reason!

A & B were reserved for the floppies, so the hard drive got the next letter "C". When I started out, we used punch cards & paper tapes to store & transfer info. If you wanted to change something on the computer, you got out a big notebook and manually flipped a bunch of toggle switches on the front of the 7foot high 4foot wide front of the computer. Talk about the caveman days of the PC!

Frank

 

[Twisted]

Hmm, it appears computer-education doesn't include history-lessons anymore.

Or is it even worse? Do schools take it for granted that kids know how to use computers these days?

 

[okaeri_man]

ah i C:\

i didn't realise the nomenclature dated back that far. ☝

 

[dreamer]

lol actually I don't know why they still reserve A and B for floppy drives ^^'
but for me it goes from C to H for my HDDs and G and H are for my optical drives.
Quite confusing, eh?

 

[Twisted]

lol actually I don't know why they still reserve A and B for floppy drives ^^'

That's for legacy reasons. Most operating systems are still build around this principle for backwards compatibility. It's not something that can be changed overnight.

 

[dreamer]

Sure, but I mean that floppy drives are less and less used.
Take for exemple the latest examples of operating systems, they don't need any boot-floppy to install.

 

[Twisted]

Well, that's true, but as long as there is demand for floppy-drives, there's going to be catered for them. If a large manufacturer like Dell or Gateway still sell systems with floppy-drives, Microsoft can't help but leave support for that in their products.

There are still many people that buy a new system who insist on having a floppy-drive installed. It's still seen as a final resort to boot up a computer if all else fails. And you don't want to count the people who still use floppies to transport small files.

No, humanity isn't ready to give it up just yet.

 

[zeroyon]

And just for the people who don't know.. you can change all of your drive letter assignments under Control Panel ---> Administrative Tools ---> Computer Management

I don't think you can change the drive letter of your boot drive or make any drives A: or B: though (you can make your 2nd HDD or your CD drive Z: if you want)

As for me... it goes A: = floppy drive, C-H drives = HDD's, and I-K Drives = CD/DVD drives