What's the difference between a "disc" and a "disk"? (2023)

Posted by IndySun 2 hours ago

What's the difference between a "disc" and a "disk"? (2023)(support.apple.com)

40 points | 47 comments

bmacho 1 hour ago|

> 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.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/disk#Usage_notes

sandworm101 1 hour ago|

Also, disk is also used in "diskette", whereas disc stands alone. So as magnetic disks shrank and were called disketts on and off, they kept that spelling. Optical discs never really shrank over the years, never being called discettes.

oneplane 1 hour ago|||

When they shrank the disc it just became minidisc ;-) But that was technically MO, not just optical. And: it was in a cartridge so I suppose they really should have called it minidisk.

irishcoffee 59 minutes ago|||

> Also, disk is also used in "diskette", whereas disc stands alone. So as magnetic disks shrank and were called disketts on and off, they kept that spelling. Optical discs never really shrank over the years, never being called discettes.

How old are you? Nothing you said is accurate.

sandworm101 39 minutes ago||

Lol. Old enough to remember when disks were three-dimensional, when you might need more than one hand to carry them. When they shrank we regularly called the newer/small model a diskette.

From wikipedia: >> A floppy disk, diskette, or floppy diskette is a type of disk storage made from a thin, flexible disk coated with a magnetic storage medium. It is enclosed in a square or nearly square plastic shell lined with fabric to help remove dust from the spinning disk.

sedatk 1 hour ago||

The term "disc" for storage predates optical media. "Disc" was the common spelling for a disk (like a floppy disk) on British 8-bit computers like Amstrad CPC or Sinclair Spectrum.[1][2]

It seems like the distinction simply comes from British and American preferences.[3]

I have no idea how Apple jumped to such an arbitrary conclusion.

[1] Kempston Disc Interface manual: https://k1.spdns.de/Vintage/Sinclair/82/Peripherals/Disc%20I...

[2] Amstrad Disc Drive Interface manual: https://www.cpcwiki.eu/imgs/3/3f/DDI-1_User_Manual.pdf

[3] Etymonline entry for "disk": https://www.etymonline.com/word/disk

Doctor_Fegg 1 hour ago||

Disk was already the standard spelling in the UK by 1984 (in a computing context), just as program was used in preference to programme. But Amstrad mistyped it as disc on the plastic mouldings for their first CPC, and were too cheap to change them. Consequently CPC 3in disks were always called discs even into the 90s.

sedatk 1 hour ago||

Did Acorn also misspell it in BBC Micro manual in 1984?

https://archive.org/details/BBCUG/page/n19/mode/2up?q=disc

MarkusQ 1 hour ago||

This is goofy. The difference was originally regional (US/UK), and which caught on depended on which product dominated which sub-market. There's no semantic difference.

innocentoldguy 1 hour ago|

Philips is the company that came up with the term "Compact Disc" for CDs, so we can blame them for goofing up the regional spellings and making the world more confusing.

I think Alan Shugart (or at least his team at IBM) started calling portable data disks "floppy disks," and then "hard disk" emerged to differentiate rigid disks from bendy ones. Maybe we can also blame him and his team.

The important thing is that someone gets blamed. :D

fainpul 1 hour ago||

And where is the "drive" in an SSD?

Trying to explain arbitrary words with logic always fails.

actionfromafar 1 hour ago||

Same as the Alcubierre drive! ;)

coffee-- 2 hours ago||

There was a subculture communicating on FIDOnet about collecting AOL installation media (3.5" disks) and reusing them. Somehow we ended up coining the term "bisk" to refer to AOL's given-away media, and much sadness was had when they moved to CDs.

So add one more to the list: a commercial disk reused for your custom .WAD files can be a bisk.

OhMeadhbh 1 hour ago||

Tron, if I remember correctly, had DISCS instead of DISKS. And if modern CPUs are RISCy, then maybe modern Intel architecture CPUs are Risky.

bonesss 1 hour ago||

The last letter.

[Did I pass the interview? No? Understandable.]

rikthevik 1 hour ago||

A disc looks like a disc, and a disk doesn't look like a disc.

addaon 1 hour ago||

Always thought that “disc” was the original word for an object of a certain shape. As they evolved for computer storage, we got smaller diskettes… which were abbreviated to disks.

delichon 1 hour ago|

  sceptic - skeptic
  mollusc - mollusk
  celt - kelt
  cabob - kabob
  disc - disk

Corporate wants you to find the difference.

9rx 1 hour ago|

sceptic - someone inclined to question or doubt what they sense optically.

skeptic - someone inclined to question or doubt what they sense magnetically.

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