I still use a floppy at least twice a week, I have to transfer small AutoCAD files and word documents from school computers to my house, floppy is the most convient, they don't let us save on those computers. They are crummy Compaq units - i think they are iPaq (made a few years ago?), no CD drives, so definitely no burning action. Floppy serves my need..now obviously if i need to give my friend a copy of a program, CDR here we come..
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My prediction: Compactflash will be the floppy replacement
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After a little looking around I found one that's even better:
USB2 Flash Reader
That will work nicely.
Viper GTS
USB2 Flash Reader
That will work nicely.
Viper GTS
Wallydraigle
Banned
Microdrives are like tiny hard drives, with platters and the works. They are not nearly as durable as CF. You can wash a CF card in your pocket in the washer. Drop a microdrive a foot onto your desk and you could be out of luck.
When they say that Microdrives are CF-II, it just means that they are the same form factor and will work in a CF reader that accepts CF-II media.
Another cool thing about CF cards is that if you have an IDE reader you can even boot from them. But the thing that sucks about IDE readers is that you have to reboot to swap cards.
ultimatebob
Lifer
I agree with you completely. I didn't even bother adding a floppy drive to my new computer, and put in a 3.5" multi-format flash reader instead.
The best thing about floppies is that they are cheap, disposable, and painless to use.
CD's are cheap & disposable, but tracking down a spindle of CDR's, burning the disc, waiting for the leadout, etc. is a PITA when all you want to do is dump a 400K BIOS image onto a disc to upgrade some old machine you're working on.
CF would be great, if it weren't so expensive. I'm not going to give a CF to someone ($20+) when a <$1 floppy will work just as well and is universal.
Viper GTS
CD's are cheap & disposable, but tracking down a spindle of CDR's, burning the disc, waiting for the leadout, etc. is a PITA when all you want to do is dump a 400K BIOS image onto a disc to upgrade some old machine you're working on.
CF would be great, if it weren't so expensive. I'm not going to give a CF to someone ($20+) when a <$1 floppy will work just as well and is universal.
Viper GTS
the thing that makes floppies endure it's the relative smaller physical size, the fact that anyone (99%) with a computer has one, cheap, and reusable (to an extent).
compactflash has 2 things going for it, physical size, and capacity. but they are too expensive, in terms of being able to give it away without incurring some substantial cost.
why has the CD not replaced the floppy? they are bigger physically, and well, cumbersome to lug around imo. mini cdrs arent =\
personally, if any flash memory is to replace the floppy, those usb keychain drives will. it does not require anything but a usb port which virtually anyone has. compact flash requires a reader.
--
you are correct in thinking that solid state is the way to go.
compactflash has 2 things going for it, physical size, and capacity. but they are too expensive, in terms of being able to give it away without incurring some substantial cost.
why has the CD not replaced the floppy? they are bigger physically, and well, cumbersome to lug around imo. mini cdrs arent =\
personally, if any flash memory is to replace the floppy, those usb keychain drives will. it does not require anything but a usb port which virtually anyone has. compact flash requires a reader.
--
you are correct in thinking that solid state is the way to go.
The sad part of this story is that my brother in law had to buy a parallel port interface Zip drive over Christmas to transport files from his work computer to home.
Apparently the Navy still uses Zip drives as a standard format running Win NT, there is no USB on his work computer 🙁
They buy him a $50 million aircraft to fly, but no USB ports. Guys running flihgt sims at home have nicer PCs than the guys who really fly the planes. 🙁
Apparently the Navy still uses Zip drives as a standard format running Win NT, there is no USB on his work computer 🙁
They buy him a $50 million aircraft to fly, but no USB ports. Guys running flihgt sims at home have nicer PCs than the guys who really fly the planes. 🙁
StattlichPassat
Banned
Ironic. Because that's exactly what replaced my floppy. Literally, I bought my CF reader and ditched my floppy drive. Anybody want it? 🙂
EDIT: Seriously, although that wasn't really the intent- just happened at the same time. No need to boot from floppies when you can boot from CDs...
EDIT: Seriously, although that wasn't really the intent- just happened at the same time. No need to boot from floppies when you can boot from CDs...
Yeah, I could see some type of flash memory card or USB Pen Drive replacing the floppy for file sharing, and CD has already replaced distribution. I've all but stopped using them unless requested.
Zip drives wouldn't have been a bad floppy replacement, but the problem was that floppy drives were so damned indispensible at one time they became a staple of EVERY computer sold for so long that it was hard to replace them with anything.
I still don't know why they didn't just develop the 'next' evolution of the floppy drive, going from 1.44MB to something in the neighborhood of 4MB - 8MB, as they did with 720KB>1.44MB floppies, instead of trying to make the huge leap to 100MB+. Small leaps cost less than huge leaps. It probably wouldn't have cost a whole lot more, thus easing adoption and wide use. They stuck us with that infernal chuckity-chuckity 1.44MB for more than 10 years!
Dell: It's Time Floppy Drives Go Way Of The Dodo 😉
Zip drives wouldn't have been a bad floppy replacement, but the problem was that floppy drives were so damned indispensible at one time they became a staple of EVERY computer sold for so long that it was hard to replace them with anything.
I still don't know why they didn't just develop the 'next' evolution of the floppy drive, going from 1.44MB to something in the neighborhood of 4MB - 8MB, as they did with 720KB>1.44MB floppies, instead of trying to make the huge leap to 100MB+. Small leaps cost less than huge leaps. It probably wouldn't have cost a whole lot more, thus easing adoption and wide use. They stuck us with that infernal chuckity-chuckity 1.44MB for more than 10 years!
lol! Well...not quite:
Dell: It's Time Floppy Drives Go Way Of The Dodo 😉
ultimatebob
Lifer
IBM tried releasing 2.88M floppy drives, which were backward compatible with 1.44 and 720K floppies. They were overpriced, however, and never caught on.
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