If Intel's killing the floppy, then is there a suitable replacement?

[Wingznut]

Right... so new PC's in the coming years won't have floppy drives. On a NEW PC next year (or the year after), you won't have to worry about finding a Win95 boot disk. You won't have to be concerned that you can't boot from cd.

"It could ... actually make working on older PC EASIER"

This is irrelevant... As I said before, your "older PC" will still have the floppy drive installed.

 

[imgod2u]

Here's a question, when's the last time you used a floppy disk? Since I'm on an NTFS partition, I haven't used the win98 boot disk in a while, if I needed to reformat, I'd do so with the WinXP cd, if I wanted to repair windows files, there's the WinXP cd again. If I wanted a quick way to transfer files to another computer, there's my wireless network, and if that person doesn't have a network, I'll just drag and drop those files to a cdrw. It's 650MB, most cd-rom drives can read it, with WinXP, support for CDRW is integrated so it's as easy as drag and drop (DirectCD is also useful), and writing and reading from it is much faster.

 

[CZroe]

Wingznut PEZ: Yes but it would be easier to have all your boot disks archived on one legacy compatible media that can avoid the pitfalls of capacity & extreme magnetic/presure/temperature sensitivities, especially when making old boot disk from a machine running that OS get's increaseingly difficult. One 128MB Sony Memory Stick + one Mavica floppy disk adapter is almost exactly this...

imgod2u: Like I said, I have more than one PC WAITING on me for one floppy disk requirement, or another. So the answer is: I need one practically every day & if I had what I needed I could finish the job and NOT need them for multitudes longer than normally necessary and even then I find the need an average of 3 times a month JUST for the purposes stated above. I'm not even counting the freakin' Cobol class my school makes me take! That would be like what, 2 billion times a month? Also, I need to fix an error (Remap to spare sectors) on an IBM drive that currently needs to be formatted & I haven't had the time to back it up since I discovered the error with the utility a couple months ago. Many other things waiting but I can't remember!

Oh yeah! One more thing in defense of floppies (And it's a MODERN use!): I find RedHat & other Linux distribution's "partitionless" instalations EXTREMELY useful, but without a floppyThere is no way to boot without modifying the Master Boot Record & bootloader app, which defeats the whole point of it only being a single file on your Windows filesystem that can be deleted instead of uninstalled. This is a VERY VERY RECENT (Less than a year?) development for Linux users (Actually, it's more for Windows guys learning Linux), so it's not like your loosing some old feature that's not used anymore...

 

[joe4324]

I havent had a floopy in my system for over a year....

 

[thermite88]

<< LS-120 drive.

Not the speediest, but still, backward compatible, and holds 120MB. >>

Grab one if you like it. I like the quiet and gentle operation compared to a regular floppy. All my recent motherboard supports it without any user intervention.

However,

1. You will find it only from surplus dealers. Check PriceWatch.
2. No one is manufacturing it anymore and don't expect the LS-240 to become popular anytime soon, if it ever comes to the market.
3. You cannot find any information from the manufacturer's web site. You are on your own to set it up.
4. The 120MB media is still easily available, but no one can tell for how long.

 

[SharkB8]

I may be a little dense here but I have a question. What are we going to use to give Win2K or XP the SCSI adapter driver when it asks for it while loading the OS? Maybe there is a work around for this that I am just now aware of. I am also with SUO and Andy that Bootable Compact Flash is the way to go but what if the FDD controller gets eliminated before a suitable replacement for the above situation comes online?

 

[GregMal]

On average I use a floppy disk daily and so do my kids at school............
Greg

 

[cavingjan]

I thought Intel has put that into the past two year's standards and the legacy stuff is still there. I still occasionally use a floppy and can't give up my serial ports without killing my home lighting system. They should just make it optional.

 

[pm]

<< Faster than you think: Intel is killing it NEXT YEAR. That means no more serial or floppy (at least from them) & the standard goes into effect against others. Perhaps it will be an "impossible to conform to" demand like the FCCs Digital Television & 911 Cellphone location tracking technology deadlines. Both came and went with virtually no-rollout. >>


Intel is not killing the floppy.

Intel is merely discouraging OEM's from putting floppies in their machines. So if you want one, you can still have one. And Intel can't demand anything, the company merely issues guidelines. Floppy controllers will be included on chipsets long into the future and if people buy motherboards with floppy connectors, and avoid those that don't then floppies will never die.

 

[CTho9305]

<< CTho9305:

<< I burn a bootable CD-RW, and update the disc as needed. and my winXP cd is bootable, as are all my x86 linux cds, so I dont need floppies. I use the net for file transfers >>

Yeah, but try booting that XP cd to install ME on an underpowered machine that can't really handle XP, or try an ME CD to instal 98 on a system with less than 32MB of memory (ME refuses to install, 3 times I've been stuck with nothing but ME & have even had to resort to adding my personal RAM, installing & then removing the memory when finished because of a simple floppy. Talk about the lack of a floppy affecting performance!). Yes, using the Internet is an option for transfering files, but CD's and flash memory are also great for removeable storage. I just doubt their ability to replace the floppy's use for anything but newer systems. Also, if I had Internet access in the places I had these problems it would be as simple as calling a friend & getting him to send me the files I needed for a proper boot floppy instantly. Perhaps wireless nationwide Internet service is what we need to abolish the floppy (Heh heh, except most of the time, the PC isn't bootable, but I usually have a laptop with me anyway)!

OK I'm posting this before finishing reading the replys 'cause I gotta get some sleep... >>



You can do one disk for each OS you need. I have a legal (ooh, wow! ) win98 CD, and a win98se cd (both as a result of whining at OEMs about their crappy restore disks until they gave in ) which are bootable, and a win95 cd. all are bootable. why i keep win95, I dont know. my p200mmx is doing NAT using ICS, so it requires win98se anyway.

CD-RWs are still expensive relative to CD-R's, but probably similar in cost to floppies. and you can hold 650 floppies. and I can write about one full floppy worth of data PER SECOND to a CD-R/RW

anyway... the smart thing to do is set up each machine perfectly, then image it to CDs. machine dies, you image it back. MUCH MUCH faster than reinstalling, too. I haven't done that for winXP, because i'm too lazy to burn across 2 cds.

 

[Nefrodite]

I thought Intel has put that into the past two year's standards and the legacy stuff is still there. I still occasionally use a floppy and can't give up my serial ports without killing my home lighting system. They should just make it optional.

there might be usb to serial converters

 

[clumsum]

CyberZerO,

Since you mentioned the legacy topic .............. I want to keep at least one ISA slot and ditch that ..... AMR, CMR slot "thingy" ......... !

I know, I know ....................... but I want it anyway!!!
Please don't get me started...........

 

[KeithP]

Woudn't be simpler and more practical to encourage people with older systems to have a complete set of diagnostic disks, with back-ups, for their systems. This way if they have a problem any technician (or the user themself) could just pop in the required disk and start to work on the issue.

One of the biggest problems with technology is designing backward compatibility into a product while trying to move it forward at the same time. I say its about time we start burning some bridges and stop worrying about the old stuff and move forward without those types of limitations.

-KeithP

 

[Noriaki]

CDRW could become a viable replacement....

I'm not a big WinXP fan, but since it has integrated PacketCD software in Windows Explorer, within 2 years almost every computer will be able to use a CDRW as easily as a floppy.

I'm not a big fan of killing the floppy...but in all honesty, since I installed Win2000 I haven't used my floppy drive except to install Promise drivers during Win2000 setup...assuming we can find an alternate media for installing SCSI drivers during Setup, I don't really need a floppy anymore....

 

[Coca-cola Bear]

Didn't Intel try to spec out that floppys won't be required to meet there standard? If that's true theres are good chance floppies are on there way out. I don't know about you I don't use the floppy much but, when you need it, it is a god send. I personally don't think CDRW are a real good solution. They just aren't as fast or easy to use. Heck in the computer lab I work in at the local university that is the most used media. Over CDRW or Zip. Iomega had a real chance to corner the market but, they screwed up trying to get in with the manufactuers. The new flash media looks promising. I can really see that take off. The prices has dropped like a rock. Speed is great. There small and durable. And they act just like local hard drives. Now the industry just needs to accept a standard.

 

[imgod2u]

The problem with replacing floppies is that they're just so damn cheap. I don't know if I could ever waste a CDRW, disc or drive the way I could loose a floppy drive without worry. Zips, CDRW's, even LS-120's were expensive relative to a floppy. That's really what makes all the difference. Honestly, I think Iomega had, and may still have the best opportunity to grap the position (those of you with sick minds, NO), I know my dad's office and lab at NYU all use Zip drives to store and transfer data from one machine to another when it's not linked to the network. But the cost of a Zip drive and media needs to go down and more importantly, it needs to be natively supported so that you can boot from it. I'm planning on getting an external, USB-powered Zip250 drive myself. Easily transported high capacity media, and as long as someone else has a USB drive, it's all good.

 

[BlvdKing]

The last time I used a floppy was to flash the BIOS on my motherboard. I honestly don't know how to set up a bootable CDR/W with flash .exe and BIOS ROM included. It would be nice to know so I could stop using that crappy old floppy drive.

 

[Charles]

Sony supposed to release a 'next generation' floppy drive called Hi-FD since about 2 years ago. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that Sony had trouble developing it.

 

[bluemax]

<< Actually that's outdated too...the LS240 drive has 240 MB capacity, plus it reads both LS-120 and floppy disks. >>


Throw in the fact that it turns a regular 1.44MB disk into 32MB and you have a super drive! I'd take one in a heartbeat if they weren't so expensive.