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.

 

[hotfusion]

Assuming your computer can read a CD-ROM drive from DOS, for example.

There are many computers out there which can't at the moment, and in this situation you need the Ol' Floppy!

And I like them - they are kind of...... quaint!

Try deyrragging a badly fragmented floppy and watch the progress.
Pure poetry in motion! You can't do that with a CD-ROM!

Andy.

Regards, Andy.
**************************************
My pathetic attempts at learning HTML can be laughed at here:

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/andyspatch/index.htm

 

[Glenn9999]

Assuming your computer can read a CD-ROM drive from DOS, for example."

Most of them can. Even now I'm running a machine from 1999 that can do it.

It's not a matter of whether you can read the CD from DOS, it's whether the BIOS supports booting from it. If it does, then that's the end of the story, the floppy drive is unnecessary.

 

[BobRodes]

A floppy drive can handle more storage than a hard drive......


There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.

- Mark Twain

 

[hotfusion]

Assuming your computer can read a CD-ROM drive from DOS, for example."

My apologies, boot from BIOS is what I meant.

Regards, Andy.
**************************************
My pathetic attempts at learning HTML can be laughed at here:

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/andyspatch/index.htm

 

[dwarfthrower]

A floppy drive can handle more storage than a hard drive......

Funny... I always thought it was the little disks I was putting in the drive that provided the storage capacity.

[sub]Never be afraid to share your dreams with the world.
There's nothing the world loves more than the taste of really sweet dreams.[/sub]

 

[robbieguy2003]

I still need to use Floppy Disk drives for installing Windows on 3Ware Raid arrays (Even 2003 Doesnt come with the drivers).

Overall though i think the memorykey is King today, lets face it, USB has been around since the late P1 Models and is more of less anywhere now. If your on Windows 2000+ they just plug in as a drive with no additional effort needed and you can get more storage capacity.

I wish someone would just call me Sir, without adding 'Your making a scene'.

Rob

 

[AndrewTait]

No one has mentioned the 2.88MB 3.5" floppies which were around for a short while.

If people had adopted these "improved" formats sooner (2.88, LS120, etc), the problems would not necessarily have been problems for long, and the development of the floppy disk would have continued.

As it is, I carry about anumber of different disks for my job:

5.25" 360k disks for legacy systems
3.5" 720k disks for legacy systems
3.5" 1.44MB disks for most systems
CD's, DVD's and 3 USB pen drives

I also carry about a spare 3.5" drive, and a USB 3.5" drive. Sadly the co. will not replenish my carry around stock of 5.25" drives. Nice for stopping fire doors in server rooms closing on you!!!!

I also still have in the attic, one of the Epson HX-20's!

So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains
And we never even know we have the key

 

[sggaunt]

Save the 8" Floppy, anyone remember those?

Steve: Delphi a feersum engin indeed.

 

[monkeylizard]

Anyone remember when this dead horse thread died? Then someone came along and dug it out of the grave?

Monkeylizard
Sometimes just a few hours of trial and error debugging can save minutes of reading manuals.

 

[jmd0252]

This thing died about 6 months ago,, best now, to just buy a 1 gig jump drive, and be done with it.. no moving parts,, and very F A S T.

 

[langleymass]

I can't believe I didn't see this one:

dwarfthrower (Programmer) 14 Oct 05 1:20
Quote (langleymass):
When a USB stick sells for $1, I will consider it a replacement for the floppy. I do think it's one of the best candidates.

128Mb USB Flash Drive - $34.98
= $0.27 per Mb
1.44Mb floppies - $8.98 (Pk 10)
= $0.62 per Mb

Floppy disk space is twice as expensive as Flash Drive space.


Let's see. I spend $8.98 and get a pack of 10 floppies. I spend $34.98 and get only one flash drive.

 

[sggaunt]

JR there was an artical in a mag I take a few months back. How to make a bootable Ram stick.
Floppys were not involved.


Steve: Delphi a feersum engin indeed.

 

[jsteph]

128Mb USB Flash Drive - $34.98

In the time since this post (oct 05), the price of USB memory has been lowered by a factor of 10. I regularly see 1 Gig usb for ~$35 (us).

And 64 Meg sticks darn near come in boxes of Cracker Jack.
--Jim

 

[flapeyre]

Plus, in a few years, the drives themselves will be harder and harder to find. Who will want to deal with an outmoded, unreliable technology even if USB memory is more expensive? For many of us, time is more important than money.

Feles mala! Cur cista non uteris? Stramentum novum in ea posui!

 

[jakatz]

Face it . . .

The floppy is dead as a storage device. Even it's highest capacity (240MB for the 3-1/2" LS-240 introduced in 1997 which never really caught on), is only less-than-half of the capacity of a 512MB (and range in capacity up to at least 8GB as of today), flash-drive which has NO moving parts, needs no special hardware to connect up to a PC and generally speaking does not need a driver to access a USB drive. They are versatile, small, tough and in some cases secure (with fingerprint recognition, password protection or/and encryption built-in to the device).

I remember back in the day, when 256KB, 8"DD floppies were big deals, but you don't see those disks around anymore - for a variety of reasons.

Flash media is the way to go . . . it is sad to see the deminse of the floppy, but it's time has come and gone.

 

[Glenn9999]

Plus, in a few years, the drives themselves will be harder and harder to find. Who will want to deal with an outmoded, unreliable technology even if USB memory is more expensive? For many of us, time is more important than money.

Exactly. Or worrying about whether the files you store on a floppy being there. The failure rate on floppy disks that I've had is pushing about 50% or so at the moment. And for my flash drive stick, it's not given me a reason to question it for about a year and a half now.

Floppy drives are going the way of the do-do. And good riddance, too.

 

[Glenn9999]

Also, this is an interesting thing to note given the status of things. I just traveled to another forum, and there are many people that have computers without floppy drives now...so the movement is going in that direction. Especially if you can create both bootable CD-ROMs and bootable flash memory sticks.

The need for the floppy is over.

 

[robbieguy2003]

<quote>The need for the floppy is over.</quote>

Unless your installing the worlds most popular OS (windows) with a RAID card that needs drivers loading during setup

I wish someone would just call me Sir, without adding 'Your making a scene'.

Rob

 

[flapeyre]

This horse is dead - shall we stop beating it now?

Feles mala! Cur cista non uteris? Stramentum novum in ea posui!

 

[jsteph]

Rob,
I'm not a punctuation snob but since it's not only in your post but in your sig...you[red]'[/red]re missing something...
--Jim