Exatron Stringy Floppy

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An Exatron Stringy Floppy (cover removed) designed for use with the TRS-80 Model 1

The Exatron Stringy Floppy (or ESF) is a continuous loop tape drive that was developed by Exatron for use with the Radio Shack TRS-80 microcomputer, among others, and was launched in 1979. The tape cartridge is about the size of a credit card, but about twice as thick. The magnetic tape itself was 1⁄16 inch (1.6 millimetres) wide.

According to Embedded Systems magazine the Exatron Stringy Floppy used Manchester encoding, achieving 14K read-write speeds and the code controlling the device was developed by Li-Chen Wang (who also wrote a Tiny BASIC, the basis for the TRS-80 Model I Level I BASIC.)

In the July 1983 issue of COMPUTE!'s Gazette the ESF for the VIC-20 and the Commodore 64 was reviewed. The April 1983 issue of Creative Computing reviews the Winter CES show where Texas Instruments showed the TI Compact Computer 40 (CC-40) which included an optional peripheral, "a wafertape digital tape drive similar to the Exatron Stringy Floppy ($139)."

Exatron pitched the ESF as "The viable alternative". The ESF was faster and more reliable[citation needed] than a data cassette, and half the price[citation needed] of a floppy disk.

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Linear
Wide (19 - 25.4 mm)
Half inch (12.7 mm)
Eight millimeter (8 mm)
Quarter inch (6.35 mm)
  • QIC (1972)
  • SLR (1986)
  • Ditto (1992)
"Eighth" (0.15) inch (3.81 mm)
Stringy (1.58–1.9 mm)
Helical
Three quarter inch (19 mm)
  • Sony DIR (19xx)
  • Ampex DST (1992)
Half inch (12.7 mm)
Eight millimeter (8 mm)
Four millimeter (3.81 mm)
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