Why isn't a computer drive is designated as 'B'?

If I remember correctly, when hard drives started getting common in personal computers (in the mid-80s), generally computers had two floppy drives, designated a: and b:, so the hard drive was called c:. Later, the convention was to have the a: drive be a 5 1/4'' drive, and to have the b: drive be a smaller 3 1/2'' drive.

Nowadays, since the use of floppies is much less common (and since the need to transfer directly from one floppy to another without copying to hard disk has virtually disappeared), PCs generally only have one floppy drive (if at all), designated by Windows as a:. The hard disk is still c:, so there is no b: drive.

First answer by Avir. Last edit by Avir. Contributor trust: 68 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 1 [recommend question]