Dell is copying Apple, again...

[G4scott]

I have found another case in which Dell is trying to be more like Apple :mad: .

Apple killed the floppy drive with the introduction of the iMac. The iMac sold millions, and now Mike Dell wants a piece of the pie.

His attempt is not to announce a discontinuation of the floppy drive, but rather put cheap ones into his computers, so they break down, and they loose their usefulness.

An example of this is at my high school, which is full of dell's. A new computer lab full of new Dells (they're small, black, don't have PCI, and they all have win2k) has been plagued by floppy drive failure. Every, and I mean EVERY floppy drive in that room has bit the bullet.

To prove that it's not just an isolated case of misuse of floppy drives (tons of idiots use those computers every day), the floppy drives in the Dells at a special school (the IB school, you know, with the smart people) have also broken down.

Although Michael Dell may be trying to phase out floppy drives for Dell, he is doing a poor job at it, because networking sucks, so you can't move files around at my school, unless you use slow and limited e-mail.

I rest my case. Are these failures coincidences or just random acts of floppy drive failure? Is Dell trying to follow Apple's smart move in killing the floppy? Decide for yourself, and post away!

[eyelikeart]

in the past couple years there have been a number of cases where other computer companies have been influenced from Apple.....mainly been the colorizing products similarly to the iMac and it's many flavors. I think it can be sort of a compliment being payed to Apple that other companies are stylizing their own stuff from what we see on the Apple Store. And now, since Apple is moving past just having cool looking computers, I think there's going to be an influx of tries from other companies to match or outdo what Apple is with the digital hub offerings. Apple is clearly creating a pathway for others to follow...

[kaneda]

what is a floppy drive? :O)

the last time i used a floppy drive like 7 years ago...the last time i picked up the floppy disk..was 3 years ago...here the exact phrase when i picked it up the disk "what the hell is this?"

[madamimadam]

I wish I could go along with this with the laughter is asked for but that just proves that a low end Dell machine is as low as things go. With the market cutting costs everywhere, what can they expect but crap.

[Unregistered]

We have got DVDRW :D

[elgruga]

Floppy disks are great for small roof tiles.
They are quite excellent when used on dog kennels where leaks arent so important.
Or on house repairs when you dont like the people in the house.
Floppies are inexpensive and almost waterproof.

For transferring files floppies are unsuitable. better to use a roof tile.

[madamimadam]

Originally posted by elgruga
For transferring files floppies are unsuitable. better to use a roof tile.

I would have to disagree, while I promote the movement away from floppy, they are good for the transport of small files, eg. images or documents, quickly and cheaply.

Burning a CDRW is FAR slower than a disc for small files and zip disks are expensive in comparison.

[Unregistered]

Originally posted by madamimadamtimallen


...they are good for the transport of small files, eg. images or documents, quickly and cheaply...

I think the transport of small files has pretty much become a function of email now which have no cost and involve the use of no media that can be damaged or lost.

[Unregistered]

Recently, I found a 5 1.4 inch floppy in a rarely opened side pocket in one of my computer tote bags. This happened just before lecturing at a university where I teach. I asked the group of 100 college students if they knew what this strange object was. Only one out of 100 had even a clue.

I passed it around so they could get a 'feel' of the past.

Marcus

[b8rtm8nn]

It's not just the low end Dells that have crappy floppies, I run a lab of Dell Precision 610s, all P-3 Xeons with Oxygen graphics cards. All come with a frickin' laptop floppy drive, I replace one a month (it would be more but I've taught myself to repair the spring mechanism internal to the POS myself to save time(?)

I would love to rip them out, but the students can't figure out how to telnet to their Unix account for storage, and the e-mail accounts are built on the same crappy Unix system. We are waiting for Central Services (he he) to build the Ubiquitous File Storage System, but that may take years. Can you say iTools? Too bad stats programs are lean on Apple, but that's changing.

-Harry Tuttle

[Six]

I'm sitting in front of a dell right now. Not by choice, but because when the schools decided to get all new computers 3 years ago, they decided to go with crappy dells. They suck, trust me.. im not sure about the disk drives because I have never had a use for them. I hope my school learned from their giant mistake.

[Normal Guy]

There's nothing terribly wrong with Dell Computer corporation. Given it's not an Apple. I prefer a Mac to a PC anyday. Thankfully my position as network admin at a school that uses only macs (130 imacs, powermacs, ibooks, and powerbooks)(3 G4 Servers with the works) Apple has the upper hand on reliabilty. 40 of the 130 workstations are 7500 and 7600 PowerPCs. For those of you unfamiliar with the pre-imac era its a beige mac desktop running at between 100-200Mz, 128Mbs RAM, and a 1GB SCISI HD. Another 40 are All-in-one G3s (the imac's big brother). After working with this school for 3 years nothing beats a mac. Dell puts service tags right on the front of the machines with 800 numbers for a reason. The secratary here wanted a Dell, so we bought here one. She had back problems though, and it was really too big of a paper weight for her.

[eyelikeart]

Originally posted by Unregistered
Recently, I found a 5 1.4 inch floppy in a rarely opened side pocket in one of my computer tote bags. This happened just before lecturing at a university where I teach. I asked the group of 100 college students if they knew what this strange object was. Only one out of 100 had even a clue.

I passed it around so they could get a 'feel' of the past.

Marcus

ha ha ha!!!

I got into computers just past the 5.25" floppy era....but they are still fun and reminiscent to look at...:p

[mischief]

One thing many people overlook about Apple is that defective products are the exception, not the rule. "Bad" products have been made public in most cases. The basic feature set is simple, friendly and in keeping with current I T trends. The whole experience is so ubiquitously pain-free that it's easy to overlook how good a thing we have.

[mischief]

The coolest thing about these was you could stick them in sheet-rock (see also Gypsum Board, Drywall, Plaster Gyp-Board) if you threw them right.

Shurgeeken-Geek throwing stars.

[agreenster]

I still have 'Karateka' on one of my 5.25 inch floppies. I would kill to get that transfered to work on my Mac. Any suggestions? Ive tried downloading Apple ][ emulators, but they never seem to work right...

[mischief]

Presumably, if it was written for the Mac ][ it'd be a fairly simple program. Perhaps there's a recompile that'd make it useable. Any idea what which language it's in? Swahili?

[evildead]

I have had the same problem with the Little black Dells. You have to jam thf floppy in there real good to get it to work. try and try again.. it will register. I was updating a whole lap via a floppy disk of those things.... its a pain in the ass.

[dantec]

But, the only reason I have it is because I need it for my school!

Same thing with Acers, except worse... : ( 22 out of 24 laptops in my class broke (about 6 had DOA, or really ****** diskette drives that broke down 2 weeks later)... Some screens snaped off, some hard drive heads got stuck together... Just imagine the horrible...

And...

There's just me sitting with my blueberry iBook (at the time, now it's indigo) in peace without any troubles... ;)

[tw9876z]

i think the floppy disk died when zip disk came out. The floppy can only hold a small amount of stuff. I think the next small holder will be the cd-r or cd-rw. Thats what i use and since most well everyone i know people use cd there is no need for floppy, the dvd-r will be the new big holder, much like cd was a few years ago. I think the floppy should just stop being made, it usually is used for papers but since i dont have a floppy on mine, i use powerbook g4, i just send it over the net because it is so small. The floppy should, and will be soon, dropped.

[dantec]

Didn't intel, not so long ago... say that they were going to try and drop the floppy design? Such a dumb technology... and has been here for too long..!

The zip is great for transfers if you can't do e-mail. And to someone in who replied earlier: The zip is more expensive because it can hold 100mb (DUH!) and the diskette can only hold 2 mb! :rolleyes:

Now for Apple's new technology... iDisk!

[amichalo]

Any of you MS Office v.X users notice in the new verisons of Word & Excel, the 'save' icon, which used to resemble a 3.5" floppy, is now strikingly similar to a Zip disk?

I would like to point out that this is ONLY a feature of the Mac version of Office since Windows versions continue to use small, low res icons on their toolbars instead of the hi res, larger and detailed icons of v.X

[atlascott]

Floppy tech is not dumb! In fact, floppy tech enabled the PC revolution--remember when you ran your OS off a floppy before HD's came along? Ok, most of you probably do not, but floppy tech allowed this whole thing to get off the ground!

Anyway, I think is is hysterical when the industry collectively shat its pants when Jobs phased out the floppy. Gloom and Doom! The End of Apple! they said! Now, no one uses floppies. You can email people anything that is floppy-sized, and if it is much more than floppy size, it is still more reasonable to email it. And if it is much bigger, you are better off burning it to CD. And for those of you who say it "takes too long" to burn a CD--have you used a 20x or 24 x? And coompared it to breaking the file down so it fits on multiple floppies? Faster and more convenient to burn to CD. Or email.

[Six]

Sweet! You could play darts with the big ones! Just draw a target on some sheet rock!

[Onyxx]

I agree completely that the floppy is dead. The only problem is that 80% of the pc lusers out there don't know anything else. I had an image of the new iMac up on one of my school's PeeCees and the first thing the guy in back of me said was "still doesn't have a floppy drive and it won't run windows." Personally, my prefered method of file transfer is a small firewire drive. I put what ever I want on that thing and bring it where ever i want. Now if only I could afford an iPod...

[madamimadam]

Originally posted by dantec
And to someone in who replied earlier: The zip is more expensive because it can hold 100mb (DUH!) and the diskette can only hold 2 mb! :rolleyes:

I believe that if you had understood the post (best not to ask too much of the mere average citizen of the US) you would have noticed that the items being transfered were documents or restricted numbers of small files sized images. Now, would you pay the costs for a zip disk, which, I might add, can hold up to 250Mb or 100Mb if you go cheap or have older tech, so that you can take your Word document across the room.

I don't think some of you people actually see the issue. All new medias are VERY slow in comparison to the good ol' floppy for small sized files. I will say it again, I am all for removing floppies but every once in a while I find a good use for one. I have been in many a situation where I have to transfer between 2 computers that are not networked and possibly not on the internet and moving a floppy for a small file is swift and does not require a call to an ISP (keeping in mind that any time I get in a situation like this the end computer is never on broadband and has to be "dialed-up".

[eyelikeart]

Originally posted by mischief
Presumably, if it was written for the Mac ][ it'd be a fairly simple program. Perhaps there's a recompile that'd make it useable. Any idea what which language it's in? Swahili?

I have no clue....but I do have a copy of Photoshop 1.0.7....surprisingly it crashes my G4....

[Unregistered]

Originally posted by G4scott
I have found another case in which Dell is trying to be more like Apple :mad: .

Apple killed the floppy drive with the introduction of the iMac. The iMac sold millions, and now Mike Dell wants a piece of the pie.

His attempt is not to announce a discontinuation of the floppy drive, but rather put cheap ones into his computers, so they break down, and they loose their usefulness.

An example of this is at my high school, which is full of dell's. A new computer lab full of new Dells (they're small, black, don't have PCI, and they all have win2k) has been plagued by floppy drive failure. Every, and I mean EVERY floppy drive in that room has bit the bullet.

To prove that it's not just an isolated case of misuse of floppy drives (tons of idiots use those computers every day), the floppy drives in the Dells at a special school (the IB school, you know, with the smart people) have also broken down.

Although Michael Dell may be trying to phase out floppy drives for Dell, he is doing a poor job at it, because networking sucks, so you can't move files around at my school, unless you use slow and limited e-mail.

I rest my case. Are these failures coincidences or just random acts of floppy drive failure? Is Dell trying to follow Apple's smart move in killing the floppy? Decide for yourself, and post away!

[G4scott]

Allright, I'll admit it

I...

Still...

Use...

FLOPPIES!!!!!!!!!!

there, I said it.

The only reason I use them is for ESD's for win 95&98 in my A+ computer class. It's funny, though, because I edited the autoexec.bat (either that or config.sys) file to say that that dos sucks and that everyone should buy a Mac.:D

Also, the teacher of this pee cee class says that Macs are better than pee-cee's. She just says that there's money in repairing the millions of crappy peecees built.

[cplmd]

For those of us on this planet a little longer, the original mac only had one floppy (which was a pain to copy - swap, swap,swap,swap........) and only later did IBM come out with a "fixed disk" a la Hard Drive later. If I recall the original mac had a 400K as in kilobyte floppy to boot off of. Alot of the OS stuff was in ROM so you could have enough disk space for your program some data and the OS. Those were the days.
Then the SE came out with TWO floppies - man we were in heaven.

Of course the floppies were not 'floppies' like the original 5 1/4 or even the 8" of the old Tandy/Radio Shack computers. Apple started the Mac with the hard sony 3 1/2 dying out today.

Apple was also innovative with the iMac in that it was one of the first production legacy-free systems i.e. no serial ports or printer ports - all USB and FireWire plug and play - something often not noticed.

[cp21yos]

We just opened and Internet cafe in downtown Circular Quay (the harbour part of Sydney) and most of the computers are G4 towers or iMacs (not new ones unfortunately) and about 4 PCs... and guess what we took the floppys out of them to help prevent viral infection by malicious users!:mad:

Surprisingly no one has asked for one... :D

[spikey]

I have Elite on a 5 inch floppy.
Does anyone have any ideas on how to get it for the mac?

Dell make rubbish PCs even by PC standards. I will take your word about the floppy drives, but if you open a mass produced PC up and see the crap they put in it for thermal paste and then you see the tiny heatsink and fan.. you start to worry.

[MacUser1]

The Office v.X does have a Save icon which looks like a Zip Disk