Why do we still have Floppys!?

Want to just shoot the breeze? Forum 42 is the place!

Moderator:Moderators

User avatar
**$cuba $teve**
Posts:15
Joined:Wed Apr 19, 2006 2:22 pm
Why do we still have Floppys!?

Post by **$cuba $teve** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 8:20 am

The standard pc comes with a 1.44 mb floppy drive (even alienware has it) , that hasen't changed in 19 years! They may have had zip (100 - 750MB) and jaz drives (1 - 2GB) , but they never caught on!

So, my question is "Why do we have a magnetic disc drive, if the data capacity is insufficient for today's media needs?"
Last edited by **$cuba $teve** on Mon Jul 24, 2006 8:36 am, edited 2 times in total.
people online wrote:*$cuba $teve*, Damn you!!!!

User avatar
Indigno
Posts:442
Joined:Wed Jul 05, 2006 7:31 pm
Contact:

Post by Indigno » Mon Jul 24, 2006 8:29 am

Nostalgia and the act that they are still being used to transfer small files like documents and pictures. Not everyone wants to run out and buy a flash stick when their floppy drive works fine.

User avatar
timmeh87
Senior Member
Posts:3047
Joined:Mon Nov 14, 2005 10:19 pm
Location:Ontario, Canada

Post by timmeh87 » Mon Jul 24, 2006 8:38 am

i make my own rigs. and i havent had installed a floppy drive in one since like 2001.
Image

"Linux is only free if your time is worthless"

User avatar
Sparkfist
Forum Administrator
Posts:6754
Joined:Tue Apr 20, 2004 7:12 am
Location:Michigan
Contact:

Post by Sparkfist » Mon Jul 24, 2006 9:00 am

Floppies have been outdated for damn near 10 years. The biggest problem with the floppy drives is that most are only 1x, I have seen some that are 2x, that's still really slow when 1x equals 150kbp/s.

Also if you look at the computers Sony and HP have put out for (going on) two years, they don't have a floppy drive. Really it's been replaced by either frontend USB ports or a Multicard reader.
vskid wrote:Nerd = likes school, does all their homework, dies if they don't get 100% on every assignment
Geek = likes technology, dies if the power goes out and his UPS dies too

I am a geek.

User avatar
gamer2
Senior Member
Posts:3611
Joined:Tue Jul 27, 2004 12:38 pm
Location:You spam, SANTA Jason gets you!
Contact:

Post by gamer2 » Mon Jul 24, 2006 9:16 am

my Old laptop didnt have a floppy drive, which really sucked when i needed to do some homework for school. but meh.
Image
Image

User avatar
Sir Games-A-Lot
Posts:710
Joined:Thu Apr 07, 2005 7:25 am
Location:Sitting around a table wishing the king would get IBM Consultants

Post by Sir Games-A-Lot » Mon Jul 24, 2006 9:48 am

Most machines can boot off them? it provides an easy way of sending information to older PC's? They are slightly harder to cause (physical) damage to than CD's?


Who knows maybe we just like them cause we're used to them!
<a href="http://www.nerdtests.com/ft_cg.php?im">
<img src="http://www.nerdtests.com/images/ft/cg.php?val=5780" alt="My computer geek score is greater than 83% of all people in the world! How do you compare? Click here to find out!"> </a>

User avatar
MM007
Moderator
Posts:1175
Joined:Mon Apr 05, 2004 6:01 pm
Location:In the wilds of suburbia...
Contact:

Post by MM007 » Mon Jul 24, 2006 10:06 am

I have them for bootable media, generally. In addition, some older computers/OSes need drivers for USE drives and media cards. a 1.44MB will work in most machines, save the newer ones which have them removed.
Warranty-Voiding fun!

Image

User avatar
Sword_Gun
Posts:1008
Joined:Sat Feb 25, 2006 10:31 pm
Location:Somewhere rapping with DeTsL
Contact:

Post by Sword_Gun » Mon Jul 24, 2006 10:10 am

Yea, like right now, I cannot afford a compact flash card or SD card, or a Thumb drive, so I use floppies for exchanging stuff.
Image

Official Beta Quest Hunter
Official Alpha Quest Hunter

NES NOW!!: DONE!

User avatar
Indigno
Posts:442
Joined:Wed Jul 05, 2006 7:31 pm
Contact:

Post by Indigno » Mon Jul 24, 2006 11:58 am

floppies are still useful, but it made me a bit sad when my brother asked me what this weird plastic square thing was and why do I have so many of them. The reason that they're not being discontinued is because they're trying to gradually replace them with cd-r's and flash memory, otherwise there will be a lot of people who still rely on them who are panicing ( or at least that's why in my humble opinion)

User avatar
Klefmung
Senior Member
Posts:1517
Joined:Fri Aug 05, 2005 12:23 am
Location:Crystal palace
Contact:

Post by Klefmung » Mon Jul 24, 2006 11:59 am

Floppies get cleared to easily. Never use 'em, never trust 'em.
gannon wrote:hmm... *ponders about power abuse* :P
benheck wrote:Wow, guess I should have searched my own forums! Oh wait, I don't have to since the rules don't apply to me ;)

User avatar
Extreme_Jesus
Posts:1293
Joined:Sat Oct 01, 2005 12:04 pm
Location:Old Hampshire, none of that New hampshire stuff....

Post by Extreme_Jesus » Mon Jul 24, 2006 12:36 pm

for purposes of booting they're still useful

also every so often i need to transfer stuff on floppies

didnt they make 200mb floppy disks for a while?

whatever happen to them?

vb_master
Moderator
Posts:4793
Joined:Tue Jun 08, 2004 9:52 pm

Post by vb_master » Mon Jul 24, 2006 12:42 pm

We obviously have floppies so we can put Doom 3 on 1,200 floppy discs.
Image

User avatar
ganonbanned
Senior Member
Posts:2211
Joined:Thu Feb 16, 2006 5:58 pm
Location:Wisconsin
Contact:

Post by ganonbanned » Mon Jul 24, 2006 12:42 pm

me and my friends trade them. we get good pr0n and then trade them. some times they put some guys in there just to piss me off...

User avatar
Weebl
Posts:554
Joined:Mon Aug 22, 2005 11:15 pm
Contact:

Post by Weebl » Mon Jul 24, 2006 12:46 pm

Yeah, the only reason I have a drive on my computer is for booting purposes. Otherwise, they're really a thing of the past. I suppose really the only thing floppies have over CD's are the fact that you can reuse floppies, while you'd have to buy the more expensive CD-RW's for that.
Women are like internet domain names; all the ones I like are taken
Check out my shameless abuse of free blogging here

vb_master
Moderator
Posts:4793
Joined:Tue Jun 08, 2004 9:52 pm

Post by vb_master » Mon Jul 24, 2006 12:51 pm

ganonbanned wrote:me and my friends trade them. we get good pr0n and then trade them. some times they put some guys in there just to piss me off...
............................................________
....................................,.-‘â€

Post Reply