What's Happening To Floppy Discs? The End of An Era

[sky1405241473 0]

The use of floppy discs seems to be declining every day. Macintosh computers are no longer even made with floffy drives and windows computers will most likely follow suit sooner or later. Files are much bigger these days than they were back when floppy discs were first invented and so nothing but very basic things (text, spreadsheets, etc.) can even fit onto a floppy. Also, the fact that it is amazingly simple to burn files to a disc (most computers these days come with CD burning capabilities) makes it so floppies are pretty much useless. I suppose that in a few years no one will even remember what floppies were.

[wwheeler 0]

Macintosh computers are no longer even made with floffy drives and windows computers will most likely follow suit sooner or later.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

My (windows) Computer didn't come with one, I had to go buy one, and void the warranty just to add it to the machine. I think this is very bad practice on the part of the manufacturers.

 

But, I guess that they might figuer that now everyone is using CD/R-RW, or DVD/R-RW's. I can kind of see were they are comming from. Well that and the fact that jump drives are so cheap now. It is a way to save them some money when you buy the computer.

[jcrulzhere7 0]

I find floppy disks too unreliable due to their magnetic makeup. I can't count the number of times a floppy disk would turn bad in dire situations (Final Project due, etc.). And as mentioned before, they just can't hold enough data. They're only good for a few documents. 1.44 Mb just isn't enough in this ever-changing world. They now have portable storage devices that can hold 200+ Gigs of data. It's just time to upgrade to something more reliable. Bye bye DOS games

[jipman 0]

But still, one little floppy disc can save your data, and sometimes, it can do what cdroms and other big data devices can't , they can BOOT your computer, because sometimes cdroms freak out while trying to boot. AND, at school we don't have cd drives, so if i want to boot knoppix from my usb stick, the almighty floppy has the drivers to enable this ^_^Not reliable?The silverfoil of cd's can let go, or you could get scratches, OR your cddrive could tear it up to pieces (, silly, but true)

[Amorak 0]

Memory sticks are quite a good replacement to floppy disks, im getting a free USB stick with my laptop because it does not come with a floppy drive anymore.

and sometimes, it can do what cdroms and other big data devices can't , they can BOOT your computer

I use a floppy disk to dual boot on my computer. No disk and windows loads, shove in the disk and SuSE loads, its great especialy if more than one person uses your computer.

[ouachiski 0]

With broadband internet as popular as it is today there is no need in using using floppys to distribute small files. Allso the drives themselves where just so prone to break down causing a whole nother hedache of its own. I just wish that cd-r's and cd-rw's where a little cheaper to be able to give them away.

[shaldengeki1405241473 0]

Yeah, I don't use floppies any more. I remember back when I was about 7 or 8, and they were the only way to play games. Back then, everything was so simple...Nowadays, I use memory sticks and CDs (if it's not critical data) to transfer information from one computer to another. I mean, it's just more economical- you get so much more space to store things for less money spent per MB and less space spent per MB. O_o

[hashbang 0]

Well, wnough said about the demise of the floppy. They'll go the way of the dinosaur and reel to reel tape. Now we can ask ... what do we do with all these little plastic disks?

 

Perhaps one could glue them together on the floor to create the ultimate geek parquetry or floor tiles? What about using them as coasters for hot and cold drink containers? Could we develop a game based on throughing them frisbee style? Give them to baby geeks to teeth upon?

 

What kind of uses can you think of for the floppy?

 

cheers

hashbang

 

[Hercco 0]

Perhaps one could glue them together on the floor to create the ultimate geek parquetry or floor tiles? What about using them as coasters for hot and cold drink containers? Could we develop a game based on throughing them frisbee style? Give them to baby geeks to teeth upon?

 

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Floor tiles is a new idea but the other's, I believe, are already done widely. By the way, if you give floppys to babys to chew, remember to remove the metal protector first to avoid cuts.

 

 

I am not completely gotten rid of floppys. Actually I thought I was when I build my 2nd computer from old part I had lying around. I didn't have spare flopyp drive and thought I don't need one. Now there's somethingg wrong with it's BIOS (I hope so, if not it's the hardware) and I need floppy to flash the bios.

[Darren1405241470 0]

I am not completely gotten rid of floppys. Actually I thought I was when I build my 2nd computer from old part I had lying around. I didn't have spare flopyp drive and thought I don't need one. Now there's somethingg wrong with it's BIOS (I hope so, if not it's the hardware) and I need floppy to flash the bios.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

This is the reason I still have a floppy drive in each of my computers at home (even my pare parts one). It my get used once a year if it's lucky but that one time may save me alot of money or time . Plus a computer just dosen't look quite right without the smaller slot bellow the big CD/DVD rom drives. As for using the hundreds of exess floppys I have around the house, I like to go out to the shed, take out the old nail gun (or if I'm feeling really patient and careful i'll use super glue) and creatively stick em' to this big block of wood which I call a artform and plan to one day sell for alot of money .

[ouachiski 0]

They are allready planing the demize of DVD. Can you believe that right after evryoune jumps on the bandwagon they go and switch things up. It is called Blue Ray. It is a laser disk with a more dense data patern than DVD and an extremly hard shell. The shell is so hard that the only way to get a decent scratch on it is with a knife. If you have heard about the new TDK dimond plated DVD-R's that are scratch resistant they use the same material. This technology has great potential I believe but I think that they will have to make the players play DVD's allso. They will allso have to be cheap because evryone just baught DVD players and they are not going to want to give them up and run out and buy something new.

[the empty calorie 0]

Blu-Ray discs actually use a hard shell similar to a floppy disk or a minidisk, except it's made to contain a disc the size of a CD/DVD disc. Now that's what I've been waiting for! Indestructable (under normal conditions) optical disks! But I wouldn't say the floppy is dead yet. Then again, I still use 360K 5.25 floppy disks regularly...and a few of them are actually 180K 8|

[Xeon 0]

Although I don't use floppy drives to store data anymore, floppy drives are very useful for booting up computers and running utilities. Lots of utilities like maxtor's hard drive utilities and bios flash utilities use floppy disks that boot up your computer and then run the program. Hopefully the floppy won't get removed because its still pretty useful on a computer.

[the empty calorie 0]

I think a new type of floppy disk would be a good development. CD-RW and DVD+RW are just too big and too slow to read and write, and USB sticks and smartmedia cards are just too small. And floppies, handier than the others mentioned, but small on space and a little too easy to bend/break. THis is the reason I like ZIP disks, but the price isn't all that great, and 100MB is just barely not enough sometimes. 200MB would be great.

[Trekkie101 0]

I dunno i like my USB stick its pretty useful and stores a lot, i only use floppys for tranfering small bits of source code to friends but USB sticks are great and you can get biggerones if you want.