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http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20100426/tc_zd/250362

Sony officially has stopped making floppy disks. The end of an era almost 10 years ago has finally hit.

THE SKY IS FALLING!?!?! Where will I put my precious data and pron?!

I still get floppies from people at work. They're cheap and disposable. I never really used Sony floppies though, the only ones I remember are Imation or IBM.

That's it, then. Time to migrate everything.
Biggest problem I foresee is trying to reflash BIOS code on my older machines.

--Patrick

can older machines (how old are we talking about?) be made to see it from a cd at least?

Nope. A lot of those old BIOS writers can't run from CD, either because they try to write to the boot device or because the BIOS itself doesn't support booting from CD.

--Patrick

huh.. cause the infamous motherboard I was working on last week was able to run off a cd, but then again, it's a much newer motherboard. It's also supposed to be able to run them off the hard drive and a usb drive.

Heh. When I say 'old,' I mean Win95 old.

--Patrick

If I answered the OP question the way I wanted to initially I'd have to move this to the NSFW area.

I thought they stopped making these at least 5 years ago. Who are using these things? Are they being used outside the US or something? I haven't even seen a box for sell in probably 10 years. I did find a dusty box of 5.25" discs at a small town grocery store. I think I should have bought them just for the historical value.

I threw out all of my 3.5s last time I moved.

I've usually taken them out of systems because I just hate hearing the damn "BRRRRRRRT!" they make when Windows tries to access them - even if it shouldn't be. .. Case in point, the bench computer behind me I put a floppy drive in just to test a couple things.. it annoys the crap out of me. Really at the moment it's just a hole filler.

Matt² said:

What's a floppy?!

Click to expand...

Dave said:

... initially I'd have to move this to the NSFW area.

Click to expand...

Matt² said:

I... at the moment it's just a hole filler.

Click to expand...

I've got nothing to add.

I remember when I was a kid thinking how much crap you could fit on a floppy drive. Of course just a few months ago I was transferring some files onto my flash drive and I noticed that I didn't have enough space so I went in to delete some extra files to make room for the new stuff and it donned on me I was mad because I had to delete about 100mb of data and yet if I was using floppies I would have to scrounge up over 70 floppies to fit that little bit of useless data. That kinda put it into perspective (but not enough to stop me from going out and buying another USB flash drive)

the double entendre in here is amazingly large!

Matt² said:

the double entendre in here is amazingly large!

Click to expand...

Take your pick. comes in 3.5 and 5 and a quarter variation.

the 3.5 are smaller, but come in colors.

lol. Sadly, my district still have 3.5 floppy drives on their machines. FINALLY the latest pre-approve list remove the floppy.

I hope no one copies that floppy.

is it doublesided?

Tinwhistler could tell you all about his floppy. (It's pink.)

you know, 2mb of storage still is a ton of space depending on what you are looking at. I can fit ridiculously large data files on 2mb. if I recall correctly and entire AFM software package (nanoscope DI) still fits on a floppy.

I say keep 'em

40 ways to continue use of your floppy
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8651750.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Floppy_disk_2009_G1.jpg

I still use my 8"

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Matt² said:

is it doublesided?

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and double density.

sixpackshaker said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Floppy_disk_2009_G1.jpg

I still use my 8\"[COLOR=\"Silver\"]

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[/COLOR]

Matt² said:

is it doublesided?

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and double density.

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WOW! that one featured in Superman 2, I think?

Chibibar said:

40 ways to continue use of your floppy

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Wiggle it around a little and try again?

Flap it about a bit to loosen it up, then insert it again.
You might need to run your fingers around the inside edge of the hole to get it going.

(I could go on, but I won't)

--Patrick

Matt²;378497][QUOTE=sixpackshaker said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Floppy_disk_2009_G1.jpg

I still use my 8\\"[COLOR=\\"Silver\\"]

---------- Post added at 08:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:59 PM ----------

[/COLOR]

Matt² said:

is it doublesided?

Click to expand...

and double density.

Click to expand...

WOW! that one featured in Superman 2, I think?[/QUOTE]

The main time I remember seeing an 8 inch floppy was in Wargames.

PatrThom said:

Flap it about a bit to loosen it up, then insert it again.
You might need to run your fingers around the inside edge of the hole to get it going.

(I could go on, but I won't)

--Patrick

Click to expand...

then it's a South African "stiffie" ..but we shan't dwell on that!