Floppy disk nears obsolescence

[MacBytes]

Category: News and Press Releases
Link: Floppy disk nears obsolescence
Posted on MacBytes.com

Approved by Mudbug

[nagromme]

Floppy what now?

[PerMalum3]

Wait a minute, wasn't there another computer company that stopped including floppy drives in their new computers before Dell?

[stoid]

Nears? I think it's already long past.

[adamfilip]

what i dont get is why in that cnn report they have a microprocessor image.. they should show like flash memory or, cd's dvd's..

[solvs]

Originally Posted by PerMalum3

Wait a minute, wasn't there another computer company that stopped including floppy drives in their new computers before Dell?

It mentions Apple toward the bottom of the article. One of the first to use them, and also first to get rid of them in '98.

[nagromme]

Same as how CNN often shows a photo of a Mac on an article about a new Windows virus. Just one of those mysteries...

[TwitchOSX]

This story is soooo 1997

[jettredmont]

Originally Posted by MacBytes

Category: News and Press Releases
Link: [url="http://www.macbytes.com/link.php?sid=20040907201826"]Floppy disk

Cutting edge reporting from America's Most Trusted News Source.

This, folks, is CNN.

IMHO, the primary reason Windows users need floppy drives is not as "a security blanket". It's because there continue to be numerous real-mode programs like BIOS flash updaters and WiFi router configuration apps (yes, really) which require there to be an A: or a B: drive just to function, and fiddling with Windows to get a USB drive to report itself as A: or B:, much less to actually boot properly, is still a royal pain in the *ss. That's why the floppy continues to live on in Windows PCs, a good five years past its effective technological expiration date. With no adult in charge to say, "Nope. Stop programming for this anachronism", lazy device companies continue with the lowest-common-denominator approach that's worked for over a decade, and users have to continue with their lowest-common-denominator hardware so that they can get stuff to continue working. $10 and an ugly gaping maw in the face of your tower is a cheap price to pay for peace of mind.

And, contrary to the article's contention, floppies have always been a poor solution for word processing documents, because they are (1) slow as molasses in the winter, (2) far too likely to be removed from the computer before the computer is done with the disk, a constant source of lost reports on campus computers as far back as 1991, (3) unlikely to retain their data without bad sectors for more than the time it takes to transport the floppy from one computer to another (I dunno ... has floppy quality gone way downhill recently or is it just me?), and (4), yeah, 1.44 MB is still too small for a decent Word document which includes two images, a half dozen equations, and a page and a half of text.

[PerMalum3]

Originally Posted by solvs

It mentions Apple toward the bottom of the article. One of the first to use them, and also first to get rid of them in '98.

Thanks... Maybe I should start reading all of an article before I make fun of it...

[Sharewaredemon]

they do mention apple later in the article. Also I'm amazed at how few people realize that they could fit more information on a free email acount online than a floppy disk. It's so wierd i used to email things to myself to get at them at home. It's a lot more reliable than a floppy too.
Plus, i mean, GOD floppys!!!!!
MAN

you can't even put a song on a floppy.

Wait, i wonder how many songs sony would say you could fit on a floppy. let's see 20 gb = 13000 songs at 42 kbps
darn i can't figure the math out. But you guys get my joke sony would advertise the new sony floppy disk, which can hold 6 feature length films on it or something silly like that.

woah, that post didn't turn out so well.

[nagromme]

Apple wasn't just ONE of the first... they were THE first to use the "non-floppy" 3.5-inch floppies.

Floppies are vital when you are sharing files with someone who DOES have the necessary OS and app to open your data, but does NOT have Internet, a CD-ROM drive, or any ports where a LAN or external storage device might be attached.

I have never met such a creature personally

[swingerofbirch]

Sorry after writing this I realized it was somewhat offtopic, but may be interesting...

I was in the tenth grade when the bondi imac was released and got it as a birthday present (my my, how the gifts have deteriorated...i think i am getting some athletic socks this year)....anyhow, I had it and we hadn't yet gotten a USB printer and without the floppy disk I couldn't bring files to the computer with our old Stylewriter, but I was so proud to have the iMac that I still wrote a school essay on it and then called it out loud to my dad who typed it on the other computer (this was before LANs and I think our free (do you guys remember that?) dial-up (gasp) ISP must have been down. I still remember the smell of the bondi, and the first CD I played on it ("Flowers" by Ace of Base). Later on we donated the bondi imac to my cousins who didn't have a computer and "it broke" and they got rid of it (Arggggggg)......anyhow back to the floppy disk, i remember people saying, well how do you do this this and this without a floppy................now burnable cd's and dvd's and firefly drives and high speed internet make that moot......but it's a fond memory to remember when it wasn't....

[150hp]

I still have a USB floppy drive which I used to swap small quark express files between my B&W g3 @ work & my iMac @ home since the email idea corrupts them. So I still use them until I save up for the Victornox Swiss Army Knife USB drive.

[neoserver]

Originally Posted by jettredmont

IMHO, the primary reason Windows users need floppy drives is not as "a security blanket". It's because there continue to be numerous real-mode programs like BIOS flash updaters and WiFi router configuration apps (yes, really) which require there to be an A: or a B: drive just to function, and fiddling with Windows to get a USB drive to report itself as A: or B:, much less to actually boot properly, is still a royal pain in the *ss. That's why the floppy continues to live on in Windows PCs, a good five years past its effective technological expiration date. With no adult in charge to say, "Nope. Stop programming for this anachronism", lazy device companies continue with the lowest-common-denominator approach that's worked for over a decade, and users have to continue with their lowest-common-denominator hardware so that they can get stuff to continue working. $10 and an ugly gaping maw in the face of your tower is a cheap price to pay for peace of mind.

I have to agree, in a house where most of the family uses PC's except me , i always put a floppy drive in them if they dont come with one because a floppy is the easiest way for me to fix a windows pc that has forgotten that it has windows on the drive i love it when they do that!

[iMeowbot]

Originally Posted by nagromme

Apple wasn't just ONE of the first... they were THE first to use the "non-floppy" 3.5-inch floppies.

Really, that distinction goes to the Sony SMC-70 from 1982. Also, the DG/One (first real notebook) had 720K 3.5" floppies in 1983.

[nagromme]

Originally Posted by 150hp

I still have a USB floppy drive which I used to swap small quark express files between my B&W g3 @ work & my iMac @ home since the email idea corrupts them.

FTI, archiving/zipping/stuffing prevents files from getting corrupted in email--and can make them send faster too. I "Create Archive" of everything I email, and send the .zip. Mac and PC folks alike can extract it.

Originally Posted by iMeowbot

Really, that distinction goes to the Sony SMC-70 from 1982. Also, the DG/One (first real notebook) had 720K 3.5" floppies in 1983.

Interesting. So 3.5" floppies were something Apple made standard and brought into the mainstream, but (like USB and Wifi) they were not the first instance.

[Fender2112]

Originally Posted by nagromme

Apple wasn't just ONE of the first... they were THE first to use the "non-floppy" 3.5-inch floppies.

Floppies are vital when you are sharing files with someone who DOES have the necessary OS and app to open your data, but does NOT have Internet, a CD-ROM drive, or any ports where a LAN or external storage device might be attached.

I have never met such a creature personally

I met one once, just once. Quite scary it was.

[macridah]

My work ordered my a new dell (i know, my work sucks), and it came with a 3.5 floppy module! I think dell tries to nickel and dime you. My boss didn't add on the floppy, it just came with it ... so I guess it added to the cost.

[pyrotoaster]

Saw this article this afternoon.
Floppies? Old?
No frelling kidding! I hadn't eff-ing noticed!

Maybe next they can start talking about why there aren't serial ports on new computers anymore! I need my security proprietary keyboard connector!

Seriously though, I haven't touched a floppy in over two years.
And, just to be clear, this - like quite a few other CNN.com Tech Articles - isn't journalism by any stretch of the word.

[iMeowbot]

Originally Posted by nagromme

Interesting. So 3.5" floppies were something Apple made standard and brought into the mainstream, but (like USB and Wifi) they were not the first instance.

Yep. The DG/One was actually a great little machine, and waaaaaaaay ahead of its time, but Data General were having serious financial problems at the time and couldn't manage to get it out there properly. If decent hardware mattered, it would have been DG rather than Compaq who ended up owning the portable market in those days.

[TDM21]

Some people NEED a floppy drive to function at home and at work. My mom is a school teacher and uses an IBM running Windows 95. She types papers all the time and takes them back and forth from work all the time on floppies. For word documents, i see cds as wasteful. Why use an cd the can hold 700 mb when you are saving a sub 1 mb file. Not to mention my mom doesn't even know how to burn a cd. Sure I could teach here how use a cd-rw and the UDF format, but then there is less of a chance the cd whill even work on her older teaching computer. Win 95 is too old for usb thumb drives and my mom has dial-up (slow 26.4 kps dial-up). So sometimes a floppy just works better then any other media.

[Timelessblur]

I must be among the few that still uses floppies from time to time. I have profs that require me to turn in assments on floppies (along with email them in). I still use them to move small files around bettween computers since it is faster and easier than email them. It kind of point less to email a file under 1 meg just to get it to my room mate or the guy next door. It takes me more time to get it emailed and one of them to get it than it does for me to put it on a floppy and give it to them

Besides I have some very old school games that are kind of fun to play that I have on floppies.

[kilpajr]

USB drives have almost completely made the floppy drive a waste of time. You have the ability to store like 70 floppies worth of data for $30, maybe less. Even Win98 can access them with minimal software install. If someone is still using Win95 then they can't really complain about having to still us floppies. Consider the fact that it is 2004. That means Win95 is almost 10 years old. It would be worth the cost for anyone to upgrade for the increased reliability and productivity. Wow, was Win95 terrible or what?

[Timelessblur]

Originally Posted by kilpajr

USB drives have almost completely made the floppy drive a waste of time. You have the ability to store like 70 floppies worth of data for $30, maybe less. Even Win98 can access them with minimal software install. If someone is still using Win95 then they can't really complain about having to still us floppies. Consider the fact that it is 2004. That means Win95 is almost 10 years old. It would be worth the cost for anyone to upgrade for the increased reliability and productivity. Wow, was Win95 terrible or what?

ok sure care to buy me 5 of them. That about how many floppies I have floating around some times. (all of them to turn in assiments or hand some files to get passed around). 5 floppies 5 bucks. 5 USB drives 150 bucks. Do the math. I loose a floppy or dont get it back no big deal they are cheap and I have quite a few that are just laying around.

The floppy is a very usefull thing for a lot of people out there. a lot of the time it just easier and faster to though some small files on there to transport them. It a hell of a lot easier and faster than going though the trouble to email them.