What's funny is that the floppy discs they used weren't the 3,5" hard ones people remember from the 90's (the save button icon) but the old 5,25" ones that were actually floppy. That was some ancient shit.
Source: friend who is a curator of a computer museum who has old IBM midrange like System 36 and other floppy drives that he uses all the time.
I guess even if IBM didn't put it on the PC, everybody would migrate into 5 1/4" disks on almost the same timeline. Those changes were very compelling back then.
> The Defense Department has transitioned away from a 1970s-era nuclear command and control system that relied on eight-inch floppy disks.