History (1984): Magnetic Tape Cartridge Wafadrive

This article was published by the Museum of Obsolete Media.

Wafadrive (1984-late 1980s)

The Wafadrive was a magnetic tape storage device for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, released by Rotronics in 1984.

A Wafadrive unit had two drives, and the media are known as ‘wafas’.

These used very narrow (1.8mm) continuous loop tape, and along with similar devices were nicknamed ‘stringy floppies’.

Wafadrives competed with Sinclair’s own ZX Microdrives, another type of stringy floppy device. Wafadrives were slower than ZX Microdrives, but still significantly faster than Compact Cassettes.

Wafas were available in 16KB, 64KB or 128KB capacities and a few came preloaded with software.