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A question in the windows forum about floppy-less computers got me interested. How many people still use either?

I have a combo drive that supports all three formats, it has the 5.25 both formats and the 3.5 format in it. Got it from a friend a few years ago, and I run it as my second floppy since I already have a regular 3.5 one in my box too. Oh, and I also have a LS-120 in my box too. I love my floppy drives.

I had two 3.5's in my old computer, but only one 3.5 in this one, and the only 5.25's I have are the external ones that I used with my Commodore 64.

We get the old combo drives out of old trade-ins. We test them to make sure they are working. A little windex and a rag. Then we sell them for $35. We usually sell them as soon as we get them. Easy money.

Not only do I use my floppie. It's my gateway to the wonderful world of "THE DOS" :evil:

5.25 floppies are for newcomers. The One True Floppy drive takes 8" disks.

I've one of those 3.5"-5.25" combo drives in my main machine. I probably haven't used the 5.25" part in over a year (maybe two).

8" floppies can be fun. But 12" harddrives is even more so. Those disks are huge, in pure physicalsize, today a mobilphone or good pda probably has more storagespace.

And just think about this... a gas company here was using 8" floppies in their systems until last year or something. Thats reliability.

Aphasia wrote:

8" floppies can be fun. But 12" harddrives is even more so. Those disks are huge, in pure physicalsize, today a mobilphone or good pda probably has more storagespace.

And just think about this... a gas company here was using 8" floppies in their systems until last year or something. Thats reliability.

There was a story a while back, on Wired I think, about the old punch card computers and how quite a few companies still use those...

Found the <a href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.03/punchcards.html">link</a> for you guys... aren't I nice?

JQ

I haven't even used 3.5 inch floppies for at least a couple years.

Haven't used them in quite a long time. I always preferred the 3.5" anyway because the harder casing seemed more durable.

Thinking back I can remember clean rooms with row upon row of reel-to-reel tapes used for memory. I have worked for places that still use cassette tapes for backups. Thankfully I have never had to deal with punch cards (punch tape is bad enough).

In a word.....No.

I haven't used a 5 1/4 in probably 12 years. And I've gone completely floppy-less with my new system. There's just other better options to use instead: e-mail, USB pen drives, smartmedia cards.

Remember when apps and games took up 10 3.5's? Thank God for CD-ROM's.

Underdog wrote:

Remember when apps and games took up 10 3.5's? Thank God for CD-ROM's.

yeah, I still have a copy of Windows 95 on 3.5s somewhere... pretty obscene, esp when you get CRC errors on the second last disk.

Ah, those were the days.

I have not used floppies in about a year. Only thing i use now are Mini-CDRW/CDR, and regular CDR/CDRW. The Mini-CDRW/CDR disks have taken the place of floppies and zip disk in my machine.

Well. Not too surprised that not many still have the drives but I thought I would get a few bites in the "Never seen one catagory." As for me I have seen the audio tapes and harddrives the size of washing mashines that would vibrate across the floor but I can't remember an 8" floppy.

The old Shugart 8" floppy drives were amazingly rugged, but it has been several years since I used one.

The PC on which I'm typing this sports an Epson combination 3½+5¼" floppy drive that I purchased new with a Gateway 486 system some 9 or 10 years ago. The 5¼" drive worked fine when I used it earlier this year. It was a pretty nifty bit of technology in its day to fit both types of floppy drive into a single 5¼" half-height drive bay. (And yes, I have used full-height 5¼" floppy and hard-drives, but they have long since been recycled.)

Underdog wrote:

Remember when apps and games took up 10 3.5's? Thank God for CD-ROM's.

X-Files, Riven, Metal Gear, Office 2000, others...

We've reached the limits of CR-ROMs now, DVDs are the new way forward...

For the next five years or so: Thank God for DVD-ROMs ,
IntelMole

Only up to 10? Anyone remember installing Windows 95 or Office off of floppies?

I still run into a machine with 95 on it, do a network config on it, and have it ask for disk 28 or something around there.

Havent used floppies in a long time except for bios upgrades, last time I use a 5.25 inch was early 90's

absurdity wrote:

Only up to 10? Anyone remember installing Windows 95 or Office off of floppies?

I still run into a machine with 95 on it, do a network config on it, and have it ask for disk 28 or something around there.

Oh yes... I remember installing Win95 with floppies, no matter how hard i try to forget....

Here is one that will give you a laugh... I used to think my friends computer was really awsome because it had dual floppy drives. Sad I know....

I still have the 6 or 8 floppies just to install Word 6.0. I don't know why I still have them. Maybe some collector would buy them on eBay?

ZIP DISK!!!

I have a stack of old punchcards that I got from my college. They had a punchcard computer back in the 70's when my dad was there, and have used the unused punchcards as memo paper ever since they got rid of that unit. My gf snatched some for me:)

I have nostalgia for a lot of things from my 8~16bit life. But floppies are not amongst them.

I just hope flash memory kills them for good. Now if we had a standard....

I still regularly use my 3.5" floppy, since MS in their wisdom has provided no other way for me to load SCSI/RAID drivers at install time.

To all you pikers whining about Win95A on 3.5", and your little 5, 10 and 20 floppy stories....

I had Microsoft Visual Studio 5.0 on floppy. There were HUNDREDS of the little buggers in that box. A good hefty box with two thick manuals and more disks than I've ever seen in one place otherwise.

We got something like 15 replacements through my dad's work, but we never found one where *every* disk was good. Always one or two bad ones.

I use a floppy to back up my FF8 saved games... but i haven't used it in almost a year... and i dunno why i ever did.

If anybody wants them I have two packages of pre-formated bright orange jacketed 360k floppies that are unopened, I think I bought them for $5.00 a bag about 15 years ago...........

OH! By the way I still have 2 8" floppy drives and a couple of 80k diskettes to go with them if there is someone willing to try to interface them to a pc.....one of these days I'm gonna throw all this crap out.....well maby not

wait 20 years, once holographic storage is commonplace and everyone trashes their magnetic media ****, You can head on over to the antiques roadshow, at least make your money back!