Author Topic: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011 (Read 3815 times)

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.

ch_123 · « **Reply #1 on:** Mon, 21 February 2011, 15:30:02 »

Shouldn't that be "Floppies"?

nathanscribe · « **Reply #2 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.

typo · « **Reply #3 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.

godly_music · « **Reply #4 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.

speakeasy · « **Reply #5 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.

bugfix · « **Reply #6 on:** Tue, 22 February 2011, 05:02:27 »

I never used floppies, so I won't really miss them I guess.

microsoft windows · « **Reply #7 on:** Tue, 22 February 2011, 17:45:55 »

I'd better stock up on floppy disks while I still can!

chimera15 · « **Reply #8 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.

bigpook · « **Reply #9 on:** Tue, 22 February 2011, 18:07:12 »

Floppies died for me about 6 years ago...

microsoft windows · « **Reply #10 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.

bigpook · « **Reply #11 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?

typo · « **Reply #12 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.

chimera15 · « **Reply #13 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

keyboardlover · « **Reply #14 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.

chimera15 · « **Reply #15 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

nathanscribe · « **Reply #16 on:** Wed, 23 February 2011, 07:02:22 »

That's what railway sidings were for - where old copies of Razzle went to die.

itlnstln · « **Reply #17 on:** Wed, 23 February 2011, 07:32:02 »

Quote from: ripster;299607

You must be on a 10Base0 network.

Token ring.

keyb_gr · « **Reply #18 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 - ...

audioave10 · « **Reply #19 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.

instantkamera · « **Reply #20 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:

yes, it's a bad 'shop(you might even say it's a bit GIMPy), but who cares?

instantkamera · « **Reply #21 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.

quadibloc · « **Reply #22 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...

woody · « **Reply #23 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".

instantkamera · « **Reply #24 on:** Thu, 24 February 2011, 10:27:30 »

I trust a guy named "woody" to know the difference between 5.25 and 8 inches.

clickclack · « **Reply #25 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.

=)

Ekaros · « **Reply #26 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

Computer-Lab in Basement · « **Reply #27 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...

tarc · « **Reply #28 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.

Lenny_Nero · « **Reply #29 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.

bugfix · « **Reply #30 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

Jerri · « **Reply #31 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

Ekaros · « **Reply #32 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?

Only reason to still use flopies is drivers for windows and some bios upgrades.

Jerri · « **Reply #33 on:** Fri, 25 February 2011, 07:00:41 »

That's easy, it says 697 on it...

Mr. Perfect · « **Reply #34 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. Can you imagine how awful that would sound? Might actually be worse then a dialup modem screaming.

bettablue · « **Reply #35 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

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.

bettablue · « **Reply #36 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

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.

-Mog- · « **Reply #37 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.

News:

Author Topic: Floppys To OFFICIALLY Die March 2011 (Read 3815 times)

woody