WHEN WILL the floppy disk 3.5" die out?

ElFenix

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Mar 20, 2000
102,393
8,552
126
whoa, 3.25 inch floppies!?! :Q

damnit you edited :(
 

rh71

No Lifer
Aug 28, 2001
52,844
1,049
126
I'd say 10 years when the last known working PC is known to have a USB port.

Why do people want floppies to die ? They are extremely portable and pass-on-able.
 

Kyteland

Diamond Member
Dec 30, 2002
5,747
1
81
Originally posted by: zimu
Originally posted by: ElFenix
whoa, 3.25 inch floppies!?! :Q

damnit you edited :(

hehehe yeah :)
i have to many types of disks in my head.
Too many types of what in your head? :Q

damnit you edited :(

:p
 

bandana163

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2003
4,170
0
0
I don't have a floppy drive anymore. Pendrives rock.
I needed the space in the case for 6 drives, the floppy would have been the seventh...
 

FoBoT

No Lifer
Apr 30, 2001
63,084
15
81
fobot.com
the company i work at considered leaving out floppy drives for our annual PC purchase last fall

we will consider it again this year. i expect to only continue buying pc's with floppy for 1-3 more years
 

pcmodem

Golden Member
Feb 6, 2001
1,190
0
0
Built my girlfriend a PC during the fall of 2003, without a Floppy Disk Drive.

Her Becker CPA class that began in January... their software includes a freaking FLOPPY disk!

Becker uses the floppy disk as a copy-protection for the CPA software on CD.


Rather than waste a slot on a floppy drive, bought her a combo Flash Card Reader - Floppy Drive.

Highly recommend the combo unit. :beer:
-PCM
 

mugs

Lifer
Apr 29, 2003
48,920
46
91
I would have never bought UT2004 if I knew it came on 2800 floppies. :|
 

rh71

No Lifer
Aug 28, 2001
52,844
1,049
126
Originally posted by: mugs
I would have never bought UT2004 if I knew it came on 2800 floppies. :|
Oh come on... like you have something better to do...
 

WinkOsmosis

Banned
Sep 18, 2002
13,990
1
0
Originally posted by: rh71
I'd say 10 years when the last known working PC is known to have a USB port.

Why do people want floppies to die ? They are extremely portable and pass-on-able.

And easily corruptable, and only hold 1.38 megs.
 

Atlantean

Diamond Member
May 2, 2001
5,296
1
0
Hell hopefully soon. I hate it where the disk needs a floppy drive to run, everything should go from the cd drive.
 

TitanDiddly

Guest
Dec 8, 2003
12,696
1
0
Originally posted by: WinkOsmosis
Originally posted by: rh71
I'd say 10 years when the last known working PC is known to have a USB port.

Why do people want floppies to die ? They are extremely portable and pass-on-able.

And easily corruptable, and only hold 1.38 megs.


1.44?
 

djheater

Lifer
Mar 19, 2001
14,637
2
0
I still use it a lot to move small files to a test environment which does not have a network connection as part of it's image. They are handy.
 

NikPreviousAcct

No Lifer
Aug 15, 2000
52,763
1
0
Originally posted by: PhasmatisNox
Originally posted by: WinkOsmosis
Originally posted by: rh71
I'd say 10 years when the last known working PC is known to have a USB port.

Why do people want floppies to die ? They are extremely portable and pass-on-able.

And easily corruptable, and only hold 1.38 megs.


1.44?

Maybe he's confused about compensating for filename space? I've always been able to cram more than 1.38MB on a floppy :confused:
 

Nitemare

Lifer
Feb 8, 2001
35,461
4
81
Originally posted by: mugs
I would have never bought UT2004 if I knew it came on 2800 floppies. :|

Should have purchased the 280 floppy cases so they did not get too dirty

Use them to flash my MB bios, but that's pretty much it
 

dullard

Elite Member
May 21, 2001
25,920
4,508
126
There are still dozens of reasons to use them and thus they will still go on. Just last month my office finally got rid of its last non-USB computer. So for a long time we were required to use floppies to transfer files (internet is NOT always an option and these same computers could not read burned CD). There are still plenty of ~300 MHz machines out there which need floppies to transfer files yet still work just fine for office work. I say it'll be 3 years to get rid of these computers in most buisnesses. Note these same computers often cannot boot from CD either (making a floppy another useful thing).

But still, I have yet to find ANY product where I can transfer a 1 page word file from home to school and back faster than with a floppy.
* Floppy takes ~ 10 seconds.
* Internet - dialup takes a minute to connect not even counting the time it takes to open a program and email it.
* CD - even if I had a burner at home it'll take 2 minutes to burn the smallest file at work.
* USBkey - it takes ~ 5 minutes to plug one in at work (I have to uninstall the other USB components) as the USB key I have is too fat. At home, the USB slots are slanted down and I cannot reach them without crawling on the floor making it a 1 minute job to plug in.
 

TuxDave

Lifer
Oct 8, 2002
10,571
3
71
Originally posted by: dullard
There are still dozens of reasons to use them and thus they will still go on. Just last month my office finally got rid of its last non-USB computer. So for a long time we were required to use floppies to transfer files (internet is NOT always an option and these same computers could not read burned CD). There are still plenty of ~300 MHz machines out there which need floppies to transfer files yet still work just fine for office work. I say it'll be 3 years to get rid of these computers in most buisnesses. Note these same computers often cannot boot from CD either (making a floppy another useful thing).

But still, I have yet to find ANY product where I can transfer a 1 page word file from home to school and back faster than with a floppy.
* Floppy takes ~ 10 seconds.
* Internet - dialup takes a minute to connect not even counting the time it takes to open a program and email it.
* CD - even if I had a burner at home it'll take 2 minutes to burn the smallest file at work.
* USBkey - it takes ~ 5 minutes to plug one in at work (I have to uninstall the other USB components) as the USB key I have is too fat. At home, the USB slots are slanted down and I cannot reach them without crawling on the floor making it a 1 minute job to plug in.

There's always Zip drives.