I need to distinguish it from South Dakota "SD" in my spreadsheet because I'm having an SD card shipped to my South Dakota mailing address.
I need to distinguish it from South Dakota "SD" in my spreadsheet because I'm having an SD card shipped to my South Dakota mailing address.
2 Comments
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 0 pts · 73d
Secure Digital, in reference to the fact that you can flip the switch and secure it. I had to search it to be sure, but that's what I thought it stood for.
Some people think it stands for SanDisk because SanDisk makes them (among other companies). But no. Though SanDisk was involved in creating the format, it never stood for SanDisk... though they may have helped choose the name because they both have the initials SD.
OwOarchist@pawb.social · 1 pts · 73d
Or ... that's the justification they came up with.
Ever wonder why the 'D' in the logo is a disc, though? ... The "Secure Digital" branding, including the logo, were originally going to be used for an optical disc format that would compete with CD-ROM. With the selling point being the secure part -- DRM-like technologies that would help content distributors do things like region-locking and making it more difficult to copy. They'd already designed the branding and logos and filed for trademarks ... when the project was abandoned. (Likely, they saw CD-ROM dominating the market to such a degree that their competing standard would never take off.) They had invested a substantial amount of money in that branding and trademark, though, so when they started developing the technology we now know as 'SD Cards', they decided to reuse the name, branding, and trademark for this new technology instead.
"Secure Digital" originally meant 'Secure' as in DRM protections. But to make it apply to the next format, they decided to say it referred to the little write-protect switch, like you said.