Retro Scan of the Week: Apple Lisa 5 1/4″ “Twiggy” Floppy Diskette

February 27th, 2006 by Benj Edwards
Apple Lisa 5 1/4

A few years ago, a good friend of mine gave me a few of these interesting pieces of history. To this day, coming across an original Apple Lisa “in the wild” would be my version of finding the Holy Grail, and he knew this, so he gave me the closest thing I’ve ever gotten to an actual Lisa. Sure, I could always buy a Lisa on eBay for an arm and a leg…but it just wouldn’t seem right — it’s all about the quest, the mission, the adventure, and the discovery. Witness, then, a scan of an original 5 1/4-inch FileWare “Twiggy” Floppy Diskette. The Twiggy format (Supposedly nicknamed that after the model/actress “Twiggy Lawson,” for reasons unknown to me) was engineered by Apple as a proprietary storage format for its Lisa computer (1983). The original Lisa model came with two Twiggy drives, but after the Twiggy format proved unreliable with high error rates and slow read speeds, Apple begrudgingly switched to Sony 3.5″ drives on their next Lisa model (their hand was likely forced by the release of the Macintosh with Sony drives). All we’re left with now are these neat little curiosities. At least they make great conversation pieces at nerd parties. Now…to have a nerd party…


6 Responses to “Retro Scan of the Week: Apple Lisa 5 1/4″ “Twiggy” Floppy Diskette”

  1. Jake of 8bitjoystick.com Says:

    So a disk named after a popular female model for a computer named after Steve Jobs daughter.

  2. RedWolf Says:

    And the disk goes inside the computer. How messed up is that? 😛

  3. David Says:

    RedWolf you dirty dirty man

  4. WarrenA Says:

    I have a few 5-1/4 diskettes if anyone wants then.

  5. David W. Erhart Says:

    WarrenA, do you mean Lisa Twiggy 5-1/4 diskettes? If so, I’m interested.

  6. alker33 Says:

    here is a video of my Lisa 1 with her working Twiggy drives:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jxt-ntH3FM

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