SAVE THE FLOPPY 2

[langleymass]

Naturally I am curious as to what everyone thinks, but I am considering starting a new campaign. Maybe I am just a sucker for lost causes, but I think this is quite worthwhile. We need to SAVE THE FLOPPY.

Yes, it's a technology that is at least 15 years old. It's slow and noisy. But the truth is that the floppy disk still provides a combination of conveniences that we simply do not have with other media.

1. Floppies can be injected and ejected with the power off, unlike CD's.
2. You don't need special software or even special drivers to use a floppy, unlike CD's.
3. A floppy does not a need a jewel case, unlike CD's.
4. The floppy can be used on computers that are ten years old if you happen to have them.
5. The drive only costs about $10. The disks are often free with rebates.
6. It uses less power than a CD-ROM.
7. Often 1.44 MB is still all you need.
8. You can write on floppy-disk labels with almost any pen. You can use a Sharpie on a CD, but it often smears.
9. You can put labels on floppies over and over. This is not as easy with CD's.
10. Floppy write-protection is easily switched on and off.
11. The floppy disk still easily fits into your shirt pocket.
12. Floppy drives work well even if the drive is on its side.
13. Floppy drives use less power than CD-ROM drives.
14. Duplicating floppies is easy with just one command.
15. Floppy drives do not use jumpers.
16. Floppy drives take up less space then CD-ROM drives.

Feel free to add more of your own reasons. But I hope you agree that we need to SAVE THE FLOPPY.

 

[chiph]

OK, the Tandy Model 100 came out in 1983. This was obviously after the Osborne 1 in 1981, and the Xerox Notetaker before that in 1976. But the model 100 didn't weigh 40+ pounds!

I don't know if the Notetaker counts, as according to the computerhistory.org site, there were only 10 prototypes built, and it was never offered for sale (probably because they cost $50,000 in 1976 dollars!)

Chip H.


____________________________________________________________________
If you want to get the best response to a question, please read FAQ222-2244 first

 

[damber]

Here's another interesting link to a recent news article:

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/info-tech/mg18625046.100

now, where's my abacus...


A smile is worth a thousand kind words. So smile, it's easy!

 

[lionelhill]

I still occasionally use my slide rule. It doesn't tend to get nicked as often as a calculator.

 

[EBGreen]

I once pissed off all my classmates by convincing my physics teacher to give a test where he disallowed all calculators and all we got was a log table.

[red]"... isn't sanity really just a one trick pony anyway?! I mean, all you get is one trick, rational thinking, but when you are good and crazy, oooh, oooh, oooh, the sky is the limit!" - The Tick[/red]

 

[langleymass]

I certainly didn't want to bring back memories of those old casette recorders. I haven't seen anyone suffer with those since 1986.

 

[Darrylles]

I refer back to and agree with mdexer,

I recently bought a new 512 mb pen-drive for £20 retail (inc vat).
It is a sealed unit and will not corrupt due to dust, smoke, magnetic influence, dropping from a sky-scraper etc.

It'll last for 1 million read-writes, floppies generally failed after 100.
It fits in a spectacle-case alongside my glasses.
(500 floppies are difficult to lug about).

There was recently a UK tv documentary test done on all media types. All were 'destroyed' via, fire, freezing, water, being blasted from a cannon against a wall etc, the pen-drive was destroyed, but all data was retrieved from the pcb card - no other media type data was retrievable.
(Floppy, cdrom disk, hard-disk, tape etc etc)

Get rid of Win 98 and I'll be all the more happier with a pen-drive.

Also, I haven't read all posts, but I hope that you aren't talking about the 5 1/4" floppies (truly a 'floppy', and where the 3 1/2" 'floppy' name comes from). I actually recently found 300 of those in my Dad's house that I used with the old Amstrad pc's.
They are now in a land-fill of course, along with years of hard-labour from my initial introduction to computers.

Ahh - those were the days - not.

ATB

Darrylle



Never argue with an idiot, he'll bring you down to his level - then beat you with experience. darrylles@yahoo.co.uk

 

[langleymass]

I certainly do not want to bring back the 5-1/4-inch disk. The 3-1/2-inch disk is an excellent replacement for it.

The trouble is that nobody has produced an acceptable replacement for the floppy. I gave a long list of reasons why CD's and flash drives are not yet a good replacement for the floppy drive.

I will happily give up my floppy drive when someone comes up with something better. But nobody has come up with anything better. I don't want to give up the many advantages that the floppy drive provides.

Really, this thread is about choice. If you don't want to use floppy disks anymore, that's fine with me. I would like to have the choice to continue using the floppy disk.

 

[jsteph]

langley,
You do have the choice, and probably always will as long as motherboards support it. I think the gist of the thread is to accept that box-builders should no longer install a floppy drive by default. But you'll always be able to install one yourself to read old disks or share disks with the fewer and fewer folks who have them.

It just is annoying when some MS hardware/software install dialogs automatically prompt for the A: floppy, and you'll hear the a: drive grind until it realizes that there's no disk in there (and hasn't been for years in most cases) and then you get the 'cannot read from device a' message, then finally you can browse to the usb or whatever. All that a: stuff just wastes 99% of the people's time.
--Jim

 

[Dimandja]

Langley is right. There is nothing that is a real replacement for the floppy. There is no reason why the floppy should be dropped.

 

[Darrylles]

Hi Langley,

What really needs to happen is for 'standard' cd rw software to emerge victorious. 3.5" cd's are readily available.

This will happen when MS adopts that software and BIOS companies build it in. Just a matter of time.
Unix will obviously follow .

ATB

Darrylle

Never argue with an idiot, he'll bring you down to his level - then beat you with experience. darrylles@yahoo.co.uk

 

[jwenting]

> 1. Floppies can be injected and ejected with the power off, unlike CD's.

Depends on your hardware. Macs for example don't have an eject button and need to eject floppies using OS commands.

> 2. You don't need special software or even special drivers to use a floppy, unlike CD's.

As said, not true.

> 3. A floppy does not a need a jewel case, unlike CD's.

CDs don't need jewel cases, a simple paper envellope will suffice just as with old 5.25" and 8" floppies.

> 4. The floppy can be used on computers that are ten years old if you happen to have them.

I got my first computer with a CD ROM drive in 1995, that's 10 years ago

> 5. The drive only costs about $10. The disks are often free with rebates.

Drives now go for just a little more than that. I've never had rebates on floppies (in fact, the last ones I purchased cost me more than the last CDRs I purchased last year.

> 6. It uses less power than a CD-ROM.

Something there, but does it use less power per unit of data written or read?

> 7. Often 1.44 MB is still all you need.

My average file I need to carry around is now larger than that. I was an early adopter of ZIP disks because of that.

> 8. You can write on floppy-disk labels with almost any pen. You can use a Sharpie on a CD, but it often smears.

Doesn't matter. Write on the paper sleeve and throw that away when the content changes. With a floppy you'd need to glue on a new label.

> 9. You can put labels on floppies over and over. This is not as easy with CD's.

read above

> 10. Floppy write-protection is easily switched on and off.

I rarely used that feature anyway.

> 11. The floppy disk still easily fits into your shirt pocket.

what shirt pocket?

> 12. Floppy drives work well even if the drive is on its side.

so do CD drives

> 13. Floppy drives use less power than CD-ROM drives.

You mentioned that already and I questioned it.

> 14. Duplicating floppies is easy with just one command.

similar with CDs.

> 15. Floppy drives do not use jumpers.

so?

> 16. Floppy drives take up less space then CD-ROM drives.

Ever seen an 8" floppy drive?

 

[jmd0252]

Actually there were 8 inch floppies,, they were used on the IBM Systems, in the mid 70's and 80's. Everything from the System 32's, to the System 38's, to the IBM "BRADS". They were "fun" to deal with.

 

[ChrisHunt]

Sod floppies, save paper tape! That stuff was great - if only for the chad fights (chad is the little bits of paper that get punched out of the tape). Of course it gets a bit unwieldy if you want to store more than a few K .

I remember Osbornes too, a local computer shop had one in the window when I was growing up. It looked kinda like a cool box. The screen, drives, cpu and power supply (maybe a battery too) went in the bit you put the beer in, the keyboard went in the lid. I never picked one up, but it looked like it weighed a ton.

-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd

 

[langleymass]

The eight-inch floppy is totally irrelevant to this discussion.

 

[johnherman]

Alas, I am stuck with floppies for quite awhile. I was an early adopter of the Sony Mavica camera ($1100) and the original Mavicas wrote onto 3.5 inch floppy drives. The next model used CD's. Reluctantly, I ordered several hundred floppy disks (they go bad pretty easy).

I can't use the memory stick disguised as a floppy option. I am just stuck with it until I decide to buy another digital camera. It stinks since the floppy will only hold a dozen or so pictures and about 20 seconds of movie.

-------------------------
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. - George Bernard Shaw

 

[langleymass]

Johnherman,

Digital cameras are getting cheaper. It has been a long time since digital cameras wrote to floppies. It could be time to upgrade.

That's a great Shaw quote.

 

[flapeyre]

ChrisHunt:

We Americans are intimately familiar with chads, ever since November of 2000 .

And now for my comparisons (this time to USB drives, which I have become a big fan of, especially since the PC I just got at work has no floppy at all):

1. Floppies can be injected and ejected with the power off, unlike CD's. So can USB drives (although, with the power on, you really should use the "Safely Remove Hardware" app in XP).

2. You don't need special software or even special drivers to use a floppy, unlike CD's. Nor for USB drives under XP.

3. A floppy does not a need a jewel case, unlike CD's. USB drives have their own cover.

4. The floppy can be used on computers that are ten years old if you happen to have them. Why would I want to transfer anything to a ten-year-old PC? I don't know anybody with one THAT old. And to top jwenting: my first CD-ROM equipped system was bought in 1992 - 13 years ago.

5. The drive only costs about $10. The disks are often free with rebates. You can find some decent rebates on USB drives, as well, plus, you don't need to keep buying diskettes all the time.

6. It uses less power than a CD-ROM. USB drives use less still. Powered from the USB port.

7. Often 1.44 MB is still all you need. Not often enough for a lot of people.

8. You can write on floppy-disk labels with almost any pen. You can use a Sharpie on a CD, but it often smears. Use file folder labels that have the Post-It adhesive so it comes off easily. Plus, you don't have to worry about the label coming off INSIDE the drive with a USB drive.

9. You can put labels on floppies over and over. This is not as easy with CD's. See above.

10. Floppy write-protection is easily switched on and off. Change the file attibutes to read-only.

11. The floppy disk still easily fits into your shirt pocket. USB drives easily fit around your neck, on your keychain, or even in a pen.

12. Floppy drives work well even if the drive is on its side. USB works in any position.

13. Floppy drives use less power than CD-ROM drives.
Same as #6.

14. Duplicating floppies is easy with just one command. You have 2 USB drives, just Ctl-C on one, Ctl-V on the other. You're done.

15. Floppy drives do not use jumpers. No jumpers here, either.

16. Floppy drives take up less space then CD-ROM drives. USB, even less than that.

Me transmitte sursum, Caledoni!

 

[jmd0252]

I have a question,,, can you boot the machine from a USB drive? This is informational for me, not rethorical.

 

[jsteph]

JMD,
I think most newer bios's support usb as a boot option now.
--Jim

 

[Glenn9999]

> 1. Floppies can be injected and ejected with the power off, unlike CD's.

Depends on your hardware. With CDs, though if you have a paper clip or something you can stick it in the hole in front of the drive and force the tray open if need be.

> 2. You don't need special software or even special drivers to use a floppy, unlike CD's.

You need drivers, period. The only thing is that the drivers are standardized for floppy disks, while they are not for CDs.

> 3. A floppy does not a need a jewel case, unlike CD's.

I've seen them in paper envelopes. Of course, CDs are much too much fragile and can get scratched so easily.

> 4. The floppy can be used on computers that are ten years old if you happen to have them.

CDs are that old too. My first drive was a 2X read-only that required its own controller.

> 5. The drive only costs about $10. The disks are often free with rebates.

I find them for the same price as the CD-burners actually. I can get a DVD-R/+R/CD-RW/CD-R, any acronym drive for $55 and get a CD-R burner for $30 or less, same as the floppy drives.

> 6. It uses less power than a CD-ROM.

Never been that relevant to me.

> 7. Often 1.44 MB is still all you need.

I've rarely found a case where a floppy disk was sufficient. In fact, I inherently consider a floppy disk to be a unreliable medium (basically put something on one, don't expect to get it back). Same with CD-RW, but that's for another thread.

> 8. You can write on floppy-disk labels with almost any pen. You can use a Sharpie on a CD, but it often smears.

What of needing to replace the label? With my floppy disk days, I had nightmares removing labels. As far as the Sharpie on the CD goes, let it dry before you start rubbing the face of the CD

> 9. You can put labels on floppies over and over. This is not as easy with CD's.

Not in my experience, unless you put labels over labels.

> 10. Floppy write-protection is easily switched on and off.

Irrelevant in my experience.

> 11. The floppy disk still easily fits into your shirt pocket.

Not mine. My USB key fits better.

> 14. Duplicating floppies is easy with just one command.

similar with CDs.

> 15. Floppy drives do not use jumpers.

And?

> 16. Floppy drives take up less space then CD-ROM drives.

And?

and might I add, if you take that as a consideration I save all kinds of space for storage and time too. While you have 452 floppies, I have all of that on my 1 CD-ROM disk and can copy things so much faster off of it too.


Speaking of which, the only reason I need to keep floppy disks around are OS booting needs and firmware upgrades. Unfortunately I haven't figured out how to get around those issues yet.