origins of IBM 3740 diskette format

[Michael Holley]

Don Hills wrote
>The original diskette design was for  a microcode load device for an
>IBM mainframe. I recall there was an IBM Journal of R&D article about
>it, I'll see if I can find it

I happen to have the 25th Anniversary issue of the IBM Journal of Research 
and Development, Sept 1981.
There is an article on page 701.

The IBM Diskette and Diskette Drive
by J. T. Engh

The diskette and diskette drive have had a major influence on data 
processing. They provide a low-cost, compact, high-performance solution to 
the need for a reusable magnetic medium and have largely replaced the 
punched card in many applications. Early applications were simple 
program-load functions. Today these have expanded to a wide range of medium 
exchange, information storage, and data processing applications. This paper 
examines the history of the development of these products within IBM. The 
discussion includes some of the alternatives considered and some of the 
problems encountered during these developments.

You can find it on the IBM Research site
http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/rd/255/ibmrd2505ZE.pdf

My business card was in the book with an email address of
uw-beaver!entropy!dataio!holley

Michael Holley