Will the 3.5 Floppy ever die out? [POLL]

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rh71

No Lifer
Aug 28, 2001
52,844
1,049
126
I like the USB keychain drives but until every machine has a USB port... floppies will be around.

And one other thing... until USB keychain drives become as cheap as floppies, they are not as nice to distribute and hand-off (like to a teacher for project submission, etc.).
 

shenaniganz

Golden Member
Aug 20, 2003
1,019
0
71
I am waiting for the day when flash media cards cost pennies apiece--then the floppy will be a thing of the past :(. (Just spend $50 on an XD card)

 

zimu

Diamond Member
Jun 15, 2001
6,209
0
0
Originally posted by: TallBill
Originally posted by: KhoiFather
No way, the floppy will never die out and let me tell you why. First of course, many public school depends on floppy to save documents on. Schools aren't going to go out and buy uhhhh USB flash drives, CDRW for every computer in the school. That would cost them alot of money and that is why the floppy will live on forever! Muahahahha =D

Uh, my high school and college had cd-rw's on every single computer. My little sister has cd-rw drives on her computers in junior high now.

You guys are focusing on the wrong floppy killer though. Sure flash and cd-r drives are quick and easy, but as more and more computers are hooked up to fast internet connections, people will just upload files to a server (and then download them from another location) or email it to themselves. I figured out that one a while back.

thats true.

i usually share a folder on my computer and i could access its contents anywhere with a network connection, even in another state or country for that matter, as i have my own assiged static IP.
 

TallBill

Lifer
Apr 29, 2001
46,017
62
91
thats true.

i usually share a folder on my computer and i could access its contents anywhere with a network connection, even in another state or country for that matter, as i have my own assiged static IP.

That works too, but would take commercial software for most n00bs to do this safely. Also, we wont see usb drives or cd-r drives hit every computer out there, but we can bring the internet to every pc for low cost.
 

isasir

Diamond Member
Aug 8, 2000
8,609
0
0
Do most new computers come with a USB port in the front? This needs to happen, and then USB keychain drives need to be easily found at 99 cent stores.
 

NL5

Diamond Member
Apr 28, 2003
3,286
12
81
Originally posted by: WinkOsmosis
They will go away when Asus, Abit, etc let us flash our BIOSes from a CD...



Heck, I flash my Asus in Windows from the intraweb. No floppy needed.




 

Modeps

Lifer
Oct 24, 2000
17,254
44
91
Because I am the know all, be all, and I havent used a 3.5" floppy in probably about 6 years, I'll have to go with yes... yes they'll die.
 

FoBoT

No Lifer
Apr 30, 2001
63,084
15
81
fobot.com
do you have tape drive (cassette tape) on your computer?

do you have a 5.25" floopy drive on your computer?
 

SaltBoy

Diamond Member
Aug 13, 2001
8,975
11
81
50 years from now, I doubt anybody will use them. So yes, it will EVENTUALLY die out. :)
 

Booster

Diamond Member
May 4, 2002
4,380
0
0
Will the 3.5 Floppy ever die out?

I wish it did. But there is no single standard for a removable media yet.
Nowadays, a very bottom line low end computer comes with just a floppy and a CDROM (there are millions of such PCs sold even by first-tier makers like HP, IBM Acer etc. At least you see them in offices and other places all the time. And how do you transfer a file from such a PC? The only way is to use a floppy. Even if it has a CDRW drive (and by far not all PCs do unlike a floppy and a CDROM) you also need special recording software and you need skills for using it. It also takes additional time to use it.
So to speak, a CRDW or a DVDRW are worse than a floppy when you compare their simplicity of use, availability and even reliability and cost. CDRW/DVDRW aren't something that may replace floppy drives. USB flash drives got much better chances at that IMO, but they're expensive compared to floppy.
So I guess it would be good if floppy went away, I just don't get why all this huge industry can't invent a floppy of higher capacity (b/c that's what's exactly needed). A floppy drive that's cheap and can store say 1GB per diskette. However, that doesn't seem to happen and the lack of usable removable media is clear.