23 votes

Obsolete, but not gone: The people who won't give up floppy disks

6 comments

  1. [4]
    vord
    Link
    While true, there was a long transition period, especially in spots that didn't have always-on internet. In part because those CDs and thumb drives were expensive in comparison. Floppy disks were...

    With the dawn of the 21st Century, however, for most computer users, floppy disks were on their way out – increasingly supplanted by writeable CDs and thumb drives

    While true, there was a long transition period, especially in spots that didn't have always-on internet.

    In part because those CDs and thumb drives were expensive in comparison. Floppy disks were so ubiquitous and plentiful that nobody thought twice about handing floppies away for small files.

    12 votes
    1. [3]
      gowestyoungman
      Link Parent
      You could just wait to get another AOL Online free floppy in the mail or even in a magazine insert, and use it for saving files :) I have about 100 3.5" floppies for my stored Mac SE, mostly...

      You could just wait to get another AOL Online free floppy in the mail or even in a magazine insert, and use it for saving files :)

      I have about 100 3.5" floppies for my stored Mac SE, mostly productivity software and old school games. The hard drive quit working but I can boot it up using the floppy drive. Hard to believe an entire OS can fit on a 1.4k floppy.

      5 votes
  2. dannydotcafe
    Link
    I'm old enough to have used floppies extensively in childhood. It wasn't until high school that we got a CD burner at home, and USB drives weren't common until a few years after that. But I have...

    I'm old enough to have used floppies extensively in childhood. It wasn't until high school that we got a CD burner at home, and USB drives weren't common until a few years after that. But I have almost no nostalgia for them, because my experience was honestly terrible. I had multiple school projects get screwed up because the floppy somehow corrupted between home and school. I remember my dad once accidentally erased a floppy by putting it in his shirt pocket next to his id badge (with magnetic strip). And computer speakers were especially notorious for inadvertently wiping your data.

    I do appreciate why Amiga hobbyists use them, or why its essential for some very specific pieces of equipment from the 80s. But for recording scientific results, or replicating old studies? If the medium your study's data was stored on is essential to its replication, I think that means your study isn't replicable! In these cases you should really find a more dependable format!

    Of course people can and should do whatever they want. I just didn't come away from the article with a sense of there being any benefits to floppies.

    7 votes
  3. boredop
    Link
    I saw the great Brazilian jazz composer Hermeto Pascoal perform last year and he was still using a synthesizer with a floppy drive in it.

    I saw the great Brazilian jazz composer Hermeto Pascoal perform last year and he was still using a synthesizer with a floppy drive in it.

    3 votes