Originally posted by: dullard
1) Speed: Floppy drives are far faster than any CDRW. 5 seconds and most files (remember we are talking about small things used on a floppy) are saved/loaded - it takes 5 seconds just for the CD drive to get up to speed in order to start reading/writing a CD.
2) Cost: Get one floppy disk in the mail free from AOL and you are set for life - how much have you spend on CDRs just for a one time file use? Plus the cost of the drive itself is so much cheaper. I have no need to burn CDs, so when I got a new computer 3 months ago, it came with a floppy and a normal CD drive. Even if taking out the floppy saved me $5, it would cost me $20 to switch to a CDRW drive.
3) Older machines. Sadly older computers cannot boot from a CD drive. I realize that many of you cannot understand how many people still use old computers. Maybe in time you will be able to comprehend this. I still have one machine at home that I use that cannot boot from a CD, and several at work. Just for fun try formatting a hard drive on one of these computers without a floppy drive. Or what happens if you accidently get corrupted CD drivers on your hard drive - older computers need these drivers to use the CD drive, and if your drivers are sitting on a CD, good luck using them.
4) There is no drawback from having a floppy. It isn't like it slows down your computer or anything.
5) Universal. If I put a file on a floppy, I'm guaranteed that any computer I have access to can read it. The same isn't true with some school computers and CDRs. They often have older CD drives that cannot read burned CDs.
6) Working on the same file on multiple computers: Even with a good CD burner at home, I couldn't do much with it since the computers at school/work don't have CD burners. So I could transport the file one direction but not the other.
Other than saving $5 you haven't given a single reason not to include them.
1: As I've said, for files that small, you can just use email, or whatever, even my grandma knows how to do that.
2: Skip the floppy and the CD-ROM and you've nearly covered the cost of a CD-RW instead, if you can't spare $10-20 you shouldn't be buying computer parts anyway.
3: This discussion is about not putting floppys in newer boxes, not ripping them out of 486's.
Oh and even my old POS P-MMX 166 can boot from CD.
4: Yes there is, as long as they're assumed to be present, lazy companies won't bother moving on, Windows setup is the perfect example, you can't even load extra drivers from a CD for crying out, you think that would be the case if we'd only gotten with the times and killed the floppy way back in the mid 90's when it deserved to die?
5: Seriously, this isn't an issue with any computer that's even remotely useful today.
Ok, a few really really...really old computers might have a problem, but let's face it, sooner or later you're gonna have to ditch the junk to make progress, just throw that 486 out the window and be done with it, we don't keep 20 km/h speed limits on the roads so the one T-Ford owner can feel safe.
6: Ok, this is actually a decent point, but again, just mail it.
Or upload it to some free storage site.
There must be a million ways to avoid this.
Again, my one biggest complaint about floppys is, as long as they're there, everyone will keep making drivers, BIOS flash programs, etc etc, that are made for them, and for most intents and purposes, floppys suck big time.
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