Nope, explanation doesn’t work. The disk was essentially a floppy with part chopped off. You could see the little opening where the read head would read the internal magnetic part, and there’s just no way, as depicted, it could work. The interior would be too large to spin within the outer casing of the disk.</nerd>
I pictured it kind of like the second figure down on this page. Not the most efficient design, certainly, but how would that not work?
Frankly, I think the triangular disk was a little in-joke thrown in for the techie crowd. Of course, the producers should have realized that instead it would be interpreted as some kind of fail.
Agreed. The fact that it couldn’t possibly work is, intentionally, part of the joke.
I’m not arguing a disk could never have a triangular shape, I’m arguing the disk they showed could never work.
Your pic shows one that could work, but it doesn’t show the one on the episode. Here’s an exampleof how the one in the episode would be drawn based on where the slot for the read head and hole for the spindle were located.
I’m not so sure it’s an in joke so much as it’s producers and prop guys just don’t know how floppies worked, so they just mocked up a floppy with the sides chopped off. Either way, we’ve already given it a lot more time than it’s worth, it was just a minor nitpick, didn’t ruin the ep or anything.