3M, or as it was officially called until 2002, the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company is one of those odd-duck companies where if you ask what products they manufacture the answer is pretty close to a general ‘yes’. Throughout its 121 year history, it’s moved from producing sandpaper to also producing adhesives, laminates, personal protective equipment, as well as a nearly infinite list of further products which at one point in time included a magnetic storage range of products. How this latter came to be is the subject of an article by [Ernie Smith], focusing on floppy disk storage.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://hackaday.com/2024/04/05/3ms-floppy-disks-a-story-of-success-and-the-birth-of-imation/