On Wed, 30 Jul 2008, Chuck Cole wrote:

>> What personal computer predated the 8" floppy?
>
> Altair 8800, MITS, Cromemco, Sol-20, Apple, Kim, TRS-80, Commodore, ...
>
> .. many!  Some were based upon the 8080, others the 6502.
>
> My first, c1971, was based on the 8008, a predecessor of the 8080.

Your source says that chip came out in November 1972.

Here's a list of some disks and when they were introduced:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk#Disk_formats

I'm surprised to see how early some of these came out.  I remember a 
friend telling me that he used to pay $10 for one 360K 5¼" floppy, but by 
then (1988?) we were getting HD 5¼" disks (1155 KB) for $1.

Mike