 thumb|right|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  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 than a data cassette, and half the price of a floppy disk. wafers were available with tape lengths ranging from 5 to 75 feet. known tape length and data capacaties are: 5/4k, 20/16k, 50/48, and 75/64k. ==see also== * zx microdrive * rotronics wafadrive ==external links== * exatron stringy floppy as described by bill fletcher * getting files off stringy floppy wafers for use in emulators * advertisements ==references==  
Computer_storage_devices Home_computer_peripherals TRS-80