End of an Era... 3 1/2" diskette sales to end.

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amdhunter

amdhunter

Lifer
May 19, 2003
23,332
249
106
TwiceOver said:
The CD shouldn't be too far behind.
Click to expand...

Not really. I go through tons of CDs to burn music for my car. I use them even more now since my current car doesn't play MP3, so I have limited tracks per CD now.

Haven't burned a DVD in months though. Usually I only burned them to install Windows, but Windows 7 installs so quickly from a flash drive, it makes no sense to burn it. :)
 
lozina

lozina

Lifer
Sep 10, 2001
11,711
8
81
Wow I am really surprised that these disks were even-

<Please insert Disk 2>

still being sold and used anywhere on this planet! I thought-

<Please insert Disk 3>

these things went the way od the dodo bird a long-

<Please insert Disk 4>

time ago!
 
preslove

preslove

Lifer
Sep 10, 2003
16,754
64
91
JMapleton said:
I think I had the super cheap ones. :(

I had the worst luck with them, I would lose crap like a week after I saved it.

I then devised a "password system" (more like a hidden file system) to protect my files by creating 27 folders in the disk, one for each letter of the alphabet, then 27 folders inside each of those folders for each letter and then my homework inside one of those 729 or so folders and memorizing the combination, and then realizing those empty folders alone used up like 75% of it's storage capacity so I couldn't save my homework except in maybe a txt file. :(
Click to expand...

Why did you have to hide your homework?



grrl said:
A friend of mine lost her whole master's thesis.
Click to expand...

Who the hell keeps their only copy of their thesis on disposable media. Hell, I wouldn't do that on a flash drive & flash drives are 1000X more reliable than floppies.
 
Linflas

Linflas

Lifer
Jan 30, 2001
15,395
78
91
preslove said:
Why did you have to hide your homework?





Who the hell keeps their only copy of their thesis on disposable media. Hell, I wouldn't do that on a flash drive & flash drives are 1000X more reliable than floppies.
Click to expand...

Whatever percentage of the population it is that use computers much like they use a screwdriver or hammer and really have very little knowledge of what is actually taking place when they save something to a flash drive. Surprisingly some of them probably even post on this board.
 
meltdown75

meltdown75

Lifer
Nov 17, 2004
37,548
7
81
well thankfully i have a secret stockpile of floppies. sometimes computers i work on have older motherboards. i'm just sayin. don't hate me because i'm beautiful.
 
mmntech

mmntech

Lifer
Sep 20, 2007
17,501
12
0
I remember when Apple shipped the original iMac without a floppy drive. I though they were crazy. They were right though. Soon as I got a CD burner, I had no need for floppies anymore. I've still got a whole box of them in my closet though. Lord knows what's on half of them.

I can see them still being used in the developing world but I haven't seen them for sale here in ages.
 
Demo24

Demo24

Diamond Member
Aug 5, 2004
8,356
9
81
Last time I used one was a few years ago as quick boot disks. I liked them better for that task because they were writable during the process making it less steps I had to deal with. We moved on to CD's, but seemed to waste a lot getting things right. this was before USB was the popular booting choice.
 
PingSpike

PingSpike

Lifer
Feb 25, 2004
21,758
603
126
Leros said:
I'm suprised the peak was in 2000. I thought CD-RWs had taken over by then.
Click to expand...

I was in college then, I seem to remember burners starting at like $100 then...I think DVD burners were just coming on the scene and were like $400-500. Given most people own old ass computers, I could see them peaking then. My college had iomega zip drives (remember those?) in every machine so I usually used those for my papers, but I think I actually did use a floppy disk a few times then. Actually, I think in my first year one of the professors required some homework be turned in on a floppy!

After that, I've used them to install SATA drivers during a windows install and (rarely) to install NIC drivers if I was to lazy to burn a CD.

What always shocks me when I use a floppy disk again is just how god damn slow they are at reading and writing data. I used them extensively in the 90s and only complained mildly back then but it blows my mind now.
 
ElFenix

ElFenix

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Mar 20, 2000
102,402
8,574
126
i still have win 95 floppies somewhere. maybe i should install it in a VM, expose it to the internets, and see how many worms it's gotten after an hour


Locut0s said:
Yup about fucking time as others mentioned.

You know it was a long time back that I started to realize that nothing fit on a fucking floppy. This isn't a sign of the times.

You know what's a sign of the times? I'm starting now to notice that nothing much fits on a fucking CD! :eek: It will be a long long time before CDs ever get phased out because of the music industry but I rarely ever burn anything to CDs any more, it's always DVDs if I'm burning a disc.

And with HD video I can't even get much on a DVD.
Click to expand...

it was only a few short years ago i got a DVD burner (ok, maybe 7), and i was so pleased that i could back up my system to just a few DVDs.

now i think i'd need a whole stack of blu rays to back up my system. cheaper just to buy a big hard drive at fry's.
 
Last edited:
PingSpike

PingSpike

Lifer
Feb 25, 2004
21,758
603
126
AMCRambler said:
Nah that was Windows 3.1. Windows 95 would have taken a shit ton more than that.

I remember trying to copy files bigger than 1.44 meg and having to use pkzip to span them across several floppies. For those of you that don't know, pkzip and pkunzip were the dos versions of that wonderful Winzip we have today.
Click to expand...

Heh, I'd forgotten about doing that. I remember using it to copy and bring home mp3s I downloaded at school. What a huge fucking pain in the ass that was!
 
B

bignateyk

Lifer
Apr 22, 2002
11,288
7
0
Good, hopefully optical media isn't far behind.

My last two laptops haven't had CD/DVD drives on them. The only time i've used a CD in the last 5 years is at work in the classified area where USB sticks aren't allowed.
 
effowe

effowe

Diamond Member
Nov 1, 2004
6,012
18
81
Modelworks said:
its

dir /s > dir.txt

or if you don't want to save it dir /s /p
Click to expand...

Well your command would send the output of "dir /s" to the dir.txt file. What his command does is a system wide search for all text files. Even if the file was hidden a..

dir /s /ah *.*

Would find the files. Haven't had to use that syntax in a long time :)
 
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