Why aren't they selling software on thumbdrives yet?

[shortylickens]

Yeah! Nobody would ever release software on a medium you can tamper with!

I've already recanted, but pray tell, what was the widely available alternative to floppies during their period of ubiquity?

CD's have been out for a LONG time, at least since the DOS 5.0 days and I think even earlier. In fact, I seem to recall we had not completely given up 5.25" floppies when CD-Rom's first started becoming available. (My first self-built machine was an 8088 and ran a very early DOS.)

And Zip drives came out shortly after. The only thing wrong with them was they couldnt get very popular. Iomega should have let the technology loose and everybody could have made them, and they would have completely replaced floppies in a short time period. But Iomega kept a stranglehold on the drives and didnt let other people make the disks until much later. By then recordable CD's were already more popular (with the general public). They lost, and they could have been the kings.

 

[Fritzo]

CD's have been out for a LONG time, at least since the DOS 5.0 days and I think even earlier. In fact, I seem to recall we had not completely given up 5.25" floppies when CD-Rom's first started becoming available. (My first self-built machine was an 8088 and ran a very early DOS.)

And Zip drives came out shortly after. The only thing wrong with them was they couldnt get very popular. Iomega should have let the technology loose and everybody could have made them, and they would have completely replaced floppies in a short time period. But Iomega kept a stranglehold on the drives and didnt let other people make the disks until much later. By then recordable CD's were already more popular (with the general public). They lost, and they could have been the kings.

Data CD drives didn't catch on until 1993-1994. MUSIC CD's have been out since the early 80's. Windows 95 was the first edition of Windows to ship on CD. There wasn't really an alternative to floppies until the early 90's.

 

[Modelworks]

DVD still are quicker to produce and cheaper. Unless you know of some USB drives that can be loaded at a rate of 1000/minute.

 

[Modelworks]

Can a USB drive be made read only? Even if it can, a dvd-r cannot be made into a rewritable but I bet an enterprising individual can make a 1gb "read only" usb key read/writeable. Why would the industry want to sell a product on a medium capable of being tampered with?

oh yeah. No problem at all doing that. Has been possible for nearly a decade. You use OTP or one time programmable memory, write it correctly the first time or you have a lump of useless silicon.

I have a drawer full of OTP memory. Bought it cheap because people don't like to use it unless necessary. If the programmer burps you get to toss it in the trash.

 

[SunSamurai]

Obvious answer is obvious.

LOL @ Norton AV coming on a thumbdrive. Jesus Christ they keep finding ways to make that poor AV even worse every year.

 

[SunSamurai]

I think it probably has more to do with how you get the data on the media.

DVDs & CDs, once they are pressed are ready to go. A USB key has to have the data written to it, does it not? This would greatly complicate the manufacturing process.

-KeithP

wtf?

-SunSamurai

 

[Red Squirrel]

I would love to see stuff come on thumbdrives, think that would be cool. They should also standardize on thumbdrives being bootable like hard drives. I find it's too hit and miss. Some motherboards support it, some don't... they need to just plain out support it period. I would love to even be able to reliably run an OS on a thumb drive. Dell does it with ESXi which I think is pretty cool. You can basically have your OS totally separate from your data disks.

 

[Red Squirrel]

wtf?

-SunSamurai

Actually he does make a good point. Manufacturered CDs are pressed, they are not burned. Burned CDs are greenish in color, the silver ones are actually pressed with a "master".

Though suppose it would be doable to change the manufacturing process to juts dump an image on USB keys. Would maybe take longer but since the machine is doing the work anyway it's not like it's costing extra man hours. It could do like 100 at once or something.

 

[frostedflakes]

Are you sure about 1GB flash drives being only $0.18 to manufacture? It looks like spot price for 8Gb MLC is around $4. And that's just for the memory chip, doesn't include the cost of the materials to make the case, flash controller, etc. And even if 1GB flash drives were only $0.18, a CD or DVD probably costs pennies or fractions of a penny to manufacture. There's little incentive to release software on USB flash drives.

 

[coloumb]

CD's and DVD's are fragile and too big to store conveniently. I just read somewhere that a 1GB thumbdrive now costs about .18 to manufacture. Why can't I get things like Windows 7 or games on thumbdrives yet?

Wasn't a tax program last year [or the year before that] put on a thumb drive? Was a great idea - 2gb thumbdrive "free" with the purchase of the tax software.

Give it awhile. Remember [or not] when software was on floppy disks? How long did it take for most pc vendors to stop including floppy drives? The only time I use a floppy is for work purposes to access a computer configuration files from a product that's about 10 years old.

 

[Modelworks]

Price is the big one.
To get 10,000 USB drives processed and labeled cost $10.46 per drive for 4GB storage.
To get 10,000 DVD pressed and labeled cost 76 cents per DVD. For 9GB storage.


BIG difference !


Other thing is time to manufacture. USB drives - 2-4 weeks for delivery, DVD - 72 hours.

 

[Modelworks]

Are you sure about 1GB flash drives being only $0.18 to manufacture? It looks like spot price for 8Gb MLC is around $4. And that's just for the memory chip, doesn't include the cost of the materials to make the case, flash controller, etc. And even if 1GB flash drives were only $0.18, a CD or DVD probably costs pennies or fractions of a penny to manufacture. There's little incentive to release software on USB flash drives.

That has to be wrong. The lowest price I can get a 1GB flash in qty 10,000 is 79 cents. And that is just for the chip, no board, casing, etc.

 

[Gillbot]

yes, a blank DVD in mass quntity is a few cents, a 4 GB flash is still a few dollars or at least one dollar, even in bulk (non-alternator shape)

i think software will skip over to mainly direct downloads from the internet, and go away from physical media altogether

Plus it's easier to master and reproduce DVDs in quantity.

 

[Nik]

DVD still are quicker to produce and cheaper. Unless you know of some USB drives that can be loaded at a rate of 1000/minute.

a thousand bits? wow, that's a LOT of data. Yeah, good luck findin a USB drive THAT fast, buster!

 

[Modelworks]

a thousand bits? wow, that's a LOT of data. Yeah, good luck findin a USB drive THAT fast, buster!

Yeah I am always amazed whenever I see how quickly some manufacturers produce product. I toured a local sunbeam bakery that turns out 11,000 loaves of bread per hour. Just amazing what can be done with the right setup.

 

[cubby1223]

Took you guys long enough before stumbling upon the correct answer of time...

 

[RichUK]

The firmware and manuals for my TV came on a USB stick…

 

[Leros]

The firmware and manuals for my TV came on a USB stick…

Because your TV has a USB port on the back for firmware upgrades.

 

[RichUK]

Because your TV has a USB port on the back for firmware upgrades.

Doesn’t mean they had to provide a USB stick with the TV.

 

[SunSamurai]

I would love to see stuff come on thumbdrives, think that would be cool. They should also standardize on thumbdrives being bootable like hard drives. I find it's too hit and miss. Some motherboards support it, some don't... they need to just plain out support it period. I would love to even be able to reliably run an OS on a thumb drive. Dell does it with ESXi which I think is pretty cool. You can basically have your OS totally separate from your data disks.

Have fun with the shitty performance of an OS on a thumbdrive. They make exterior SSDs you know? Its a bad idea. Thats why its not done.

 

[SunSamurai]

Doesn’t mean they had to provide a USB stick with the TV.

Your TV that cost how many hundreds of $ came with a USB stick worth about 5$. Did you imagine a DVD drive back there would cost them less then a USB chip?

 

[RichUK]

Your TV that cost how many hundreds of $ came with a USB stick worth about 5$. Did you imagine a DVD drive back there would cost them less then a USB chip?

Well, I didn’t really expect them to supply firmware and the manuals on a usb stick. I expected the firmware to be available online and the manual to be a paper copy.

But to answer your question, I was kind of hoping for a blu-ray drive to be built in solely for the purpose of firmware upgrades – I was a little disappointed to say the least.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Stamping discs is much more efficient and cheaper than USB flash drives will ever be.

 

[T9D]

...

 

[SunSamurai]

Well, I didn’t really expect them to supply firmware and the manuals on a usb stick. I expected the firmware to be available online and the manual to be a paper copy.

But to answer your question, I was kind of hoping for a blu-ray drive to be built in solely for the purpose of firmware upgrades – I was a little disappointed to say the least.

That would be nice :awe:

But the manual on the digital medium is a normal thing these days. Saves them money, saves needless paper use. You can always print a copy and have yourself a usable little data drive. It sounds like a win win for everyone really unless you really wanted that blueray attached and who wouldent.