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geekhack Community => Other Geeky Stuff => Topic started by: EverythingIBM on Mon, 21 February 2011, 15:18:18

Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: EverythingIBM on Mon, 21 February 2011, 15:18:18: You still need floppy disks for a lot of BIOSes even on modern computers (yeah you can use USB for some, but there are still certain computers that demand a floppy disk to flash the BIOS).
So, they'll still be produced, just not for the common populace anymore.
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: ch_123 on Mon, 21 February 2011, 15:30:02: Shouldn't that be "Floppies"?
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: nathanscribe on Mon, 21 February 2011, 17:51:15: Well I recently stocked up on NOS 5.25" and DD 3.5"... time to grab a few more perhaps.
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: typo on Mon, 21 February 2011, 21:03:22: i suppose motherboards will no longer have the header then. as i mentioned in another thread. you would be surprised how they come in handy for advanced users and network admins.
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: godly_music on Mon, 21 February 2011, 23:45:12: Making a bootable CD-RW or USB stick is so easy, there's really no excuse to use floppies anymore. Save for some older OSes that may need third party SATA drivers.

I used to have two big containers full of diskettes, now I'm down to just one (~40). Which I'll probably throw away at some point.
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: speakeasy on Tue, 22 February 2011, 04:57:41: Our analysers at work still use them. I haven't had a floppy drive at home in over a decade though.
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: bugfix on Tue, 22 February 2011, 05:02:27: I never used floppies, so I won't really miss them I guess.
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: microsoft windows on Tue, 22 February 2011, 17:45:55: I'd better stock up on floppy disks while I still can!
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: chimera15 on Tue, 22 February 2011, 17:59:39: I can't believe they were still selling 12 million in 2009. That was like a quarter of their market and they're stopping production... It's still not exactly Dunsel.
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: bigpook on Tue, 22 February 2011, 18:07:12: Floppies died for me about 6 years ago...
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: microsoft windows on Tue, 22 February 2011, 18:11:36: I don't use USB. I transfer my files over my network. It's so much easier.
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: bigpook on Tue, 22 February 2011, 18:56:03: Quote from: microsoft windows;299559
I don't use USB. I transfer my files over my network. It's so much easier.

I take it that your network is something along the lines of 10base2, screaming along at about 10Mbps?
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: typo on Wed, 23 February 2011, 00:55:46: uh, how are you going to do full rollover on a usb port? yes, i type so stinking fast the buffer cannot keep up with me lol. i see charactors appear on the screen with a delay if i am watching. mech keyboard on usb? bah.

as of today many mobo's have a floppy header and ps2 ports. i am sure there will be some that continue it for some time. you know, for true geeks. i hope so at least. old habits die hard.
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: chimera15 on Wed, 23 February 2011, 05:46:19: How'd you get a photo of me? I was downloading porn from dial up bbs's in the mid 80's and had to store it on floppies to keep my parents from discovering it, before I built my own computer. lol My father used to buy them like 100 at a time and wouldn't notice one or two missing.

I suppose there might be kids that are still using them like that, cause they're available and buying a flash drive or something would be too suspicious. lol
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: keyboardlover on Wed, 23 February 2011, 06:30:12: As a teen my dad once lent me a floppy that had pron on it he forgot to take off. I loled. Very classy stuff though.
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: chimera15 on Wed, 23 February 2011, 06:36:49: Porn used to be so hard to get, especially as a kid. It used to take some effort. lol
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: nathanscribe on Wed, 23 February 2011, 07:02:22: That's what railway sidings were for - where old copies of Razzle went to die.
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: itlnstln on Wed, 23 February 2011, 07:32:02: Quote from: ripster;299607
You must be on a 10Base0 network.

Token ring.
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: keyb_gr on Wed, 23 February 2011, 09:51:19: Quote from: ripster;299557
PS/2 died for me years ago.

As if anyone here were unaware - nyone here were unaware - nyone here were unaware - nyone here were unaware - ...
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: audioave10 on Wed, 23 February 2011, 10:00:38: My new Motherboards have gone to one PS/2 jack (instead of two), but they will still be around for awhile.
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: instantkamera on Wed, 23 February 2011, 10:45:23: Quote from: keyboardlover;299765
As a teen my dad once lent me a floppy that had pron on it he forgot to take off. I loled. Very classy stuff though.

He should have learned to label his floppies appropriately, like rip does:

(http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=15585&stc=1&d=1298479311)

yes, it's a bad 'shop(you might even say it's a bit GIMPy), but who cares?
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: instantkamera on Wed, 23 February 2011, 10:51:20: I use the GIMP, it is fine. If I cared to spend the time it could have been quite a bit better.
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: quadibloc on Wed, 23 February 2011, 11:14:39: Quote from: ripster;299842
Until then GoogleImage is easier.
Oh, dear. I don't think she will ever find a laptop computer that handles 8" floppies.

5 1/4", yes, there were some computers of varying degrees of portability that handled those...
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: woody on Thu, 24 February 2011, 06:39:01: Quote from: quadibloc;299854
Oh, dear. I don't think she will ever find a laptop computer that handles 8" floppies.

That's a regular 5.25".
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: instantkamera on Thu, 24 February 2011, 10:27:30: I trust a guy named "woody" to know the difference between 5.25 and 8 inches.
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: clickclack on Thu, 24 February 2011, 13:42:52: "Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011"

How funny is that, I just found a "lot" of 3.5s and tons of 5.25s at work and I will have to get rid of them the first week of march!

I am curiuos to see what past/present systems they were/are for. I can't wait to check them out! I think there are thousands of them awaiting my "dismissal".

I am just assuming they are for old computers and machines that have been long gone, but we shall see.

=)
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: Ekaros on Thu, 24 February 2011, 13:56:16: Hmm, btw I just got rid of last C-cassetes, hmm so flopies, I might have gotten rid of those too, almost ;D
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: Computer-Lab in Basement on Thu, 24 February 2011, 14:50:22: Wouldn't it be ironic if 3.5 floppys died on exactly March 5th? 3/5/11 RIP floppy disks... You will be missed...
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: tarc on Thu, 24 February 2011, 15:37:03: 3.5 were a great product, one couldn't put finger grease on the disk unless he really wanted to.

If only dvds were born enclosed and live a happy scratchless life.
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: Lenny_Nero on Thu, 24 February 2011, 15:57:00: Never understood the problem some people have with floppy's,
they cost nothing and the OS sees them as a HDD so there is loads more you can do with them that you cant with USB ...without loads of other stuff to try to fool it.

Good thing I got another new 50 box of Sonys disks a few months back and I have 8~10 spair 3.5 drives (and some 5.25's) sitting in a box I got new a few years back ...the last time I heard this.

First floppy drives I ever got (for myself) were 5.25" DSDD 800k Winchesters with the Watford DFS from the Watford shop in 1984 or `85 at the mind numbing price of just under a quid per k, but they did have a nice rack sort of thing that the BBC slid under/into.

Where as now a TB drive costs 30 quid.

Thinking about it I dont remember if I have, as yet, ever been able to get any of my RAiD cards to load their drivers in (at OS install time) from anything other than a floppy disc, CD/DVD USB are pony in that case and cant often be seen.
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: bugfix on Thu, 24 February 2011, 15:58:46: Quote from: lenny_nero;300466
never understood the problem some people have with floppy's,.

1.4mb
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: Jerri on Fri, 25 February 2011, 06:56:16: Damn, when i was in the first school class, i gave the shareware of descent to almost everybody, it was about 7 splitted floppies,hehe, i had about 5 copies with me every week or something. And we all played that on BNC networks... (well, at least, if someone had the termination plug, that was missing everytime...)

Damn, i had so much on 3.5" Floppy...
But anyways, USB Sticks are more like the modern floppies, right?

But i always will keep about 10 spare floppies and two spare drives, if i ever need them.

The 1.44mb problem: with winrar you could split the files onto as much floppies, as you need.
And you'll only need 743 FDs to store a gigabyte!

Jerri
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: Ekaros on Fri, 25 February 2011, 06:58:33: Quote from: Jerri;300742
Damn, when i was in the first school class, i gave the shareware of descent to almost everybody, it was about 7 splitted floppies,hehe.
And we all played that on BNC networks... (well, at least, if someone had the termination plug, that was missing everytime...)

Damn, i had so much on 3.5" Floppy...
But anyways, USB Sticks are more like the modern floppies, right?

But i always will keep about 10 spare floppies and two spare drives, if i ever need them.

The 1.44mb problem: with winrar you could split the files onto as much floppies, as you need.
And you'll only need 743 FDs to store a gigabyte!

Jerri

And then find 697th is corrupted? ;D

Only reason to still use flopies is drivers for windows and some bios upgrades.
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: Jerri on Fri, 25 February 2011, 07:00:41: That's easy, it says 697 on it... :)
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: Mr. Perfect on Fri, 25 February 2011, 17:45:47: Yay Descent!

Also, there had been an article around the web a few years ago where a bunch of bored college kids made some massive RAID array out of floppy drives. It seem to be missing now though, all I can find is a pathetic 5 drive array (http://macguild.org/raid.html). Can you imagine how awful that would sound? Might actually be worse then a dialup modem screaming.
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: bettablue on Mon, 28 February 2011, 20:55:42: Quote from: ripster;299557
PS/2 died for me years ago.

USB 3.0 is the new high speed storage connector.
Show Image
(http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5136/5416286661_8768f18bf1_z.jpg)
Cool! Where did you get the storage bay? I would love to have a small drawer on the front of my computer to store adapters and stuff I need on a routine basis.
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: bettablue on Mon, 28 February 2011, 20:59:18: Quote from: ripster;299842
Someday I'm going to sit down and really learn photoshop.

Until then GoogleImage is easier.
Show Image
(http://www.funtoosh.com/pictures/images/floppy_in_a_cd_drive.jpg)
The look on the girl's face says it all. That's what my wife looked like when I got my first model M keyboard.
Title: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011
Post by: -Mog- on Tue, 01 March 2011, 15:52:52: I'm sure floppies will still be around for a good few years to come. You can still get new amiga 700k floppies easy enough and it's been 15ish years since they were in demand. I've still got a drive in my pc and I forget it's probably been 7+ years since it's even been used lol.