Farewell to the floppy disk

[J T]

I might urinate on a floppy disk tonight if I can find one.

I haven't used one for ages. For certain things I can see the appeal but they are a bit pony nowadays

[Submeg]

So true Harrison. Maybe I should take one in and burn it in front of them...

[TiredOfLife]

Hmm, can't remember the last time I copied anything onto a floppy.
Very rarely, I might load the odd thing from floppy.

[Stephen Coates]

Flash drives are certainly taking over as they do (as has been mentioned here before) have many advantages.

For alot of my needs though they arn't much good. For example, I can keep a disk which is relvent to a piece of work inside a plastic wallet so it is seperate from and won;t get lost amongst everything else.

They also fit nicely into the folder I take to school everyday, whereas a flash drive wouldn't. (The PCB might do, and the flash chip certainly would, but they tend to have a lot of packaging).

And for some tasks it really doesn;t make any difference which you use. Earlier I had to get a PCB layout from the fileserver in school so stuck a disk in, copied the file to it, gave it to the electronics technician (I think he likes RiscOS), he stuck it in his laptop and made the PCB for me. The file is only about 10k so for tasks like that, who cares whether it is a flash drive or a floppy? (As long as the floppy and drive work of course).

When it comes to portable storage, I much prefer to have a drive int he computer which I can stil a disk into, which is why I like Zip and Jaz as well, but unfortunately not many computers have those drives anymore.

[AlexJ]

And for some tasks it really doesn;t make any difference which you use. Earlier I had to get a PCB layout from the fileserver in school so stuck a disk in, copied the file to it, gave it to the electronics technician (I think he likes RiscOS), he stuck it in his laptop and made the PCB for me. The file is only about 10k so for tasks like that, who cares whether it is a flash drive or a floppy? (As long as the floppy and drive work of course).

Well I'd care as my laptop doesn't have a floppy disk. Nor does my desktop but I could add one to it if I desperately needed to read a floppy disk. Practically every PC manufactured in the last 9 years has a USB port, and Windows has had built in flash drive support for 7 years, so this is the most convenient way to transfer files without having to worry 'will the PC have a disk drive?'.

[Submeg]

I just bought a USB compatiable floppy drive. Just to keep those lecturers at bay

[J T]

My floppy drive /card reader combo has had maybe one floppy in it (ooh er missus).

The card reader ports in it get used a hell of a lot more, though.

I've nothing against disks, in fact in someways I like the tactile feel and the actual action of slotting it in to a tight fittting....... sorry, where was I?

Ah yes, floppies. Couldn't really give a monkey's either way.

[AlexJ]

Hmm, its going to piss off my lecturers, they are quite bizzare, they like things only to be on floppy if you have to hand in an assignment. Will have to see if I can stockpile a few.

Tell them to get with the times! - all my assignments are submitted via. either email or using this CMS system called Blackboard. It's a pretty good system because all course handouts and ppt slides are on there to download and I can submit assignments without actually going into Uni.

[TiredOfLife]

@ Ste

Even 10k would be noticibly faster on a flash pen than a floppy.
Also a lot less likely to corrupt.
Wouldn't be without my flashpen.
Have a 2gig one which I always keep in my pocket.
Often comes in handy.

[Stephen Coates]

At my school, all the computers except for the new laptops have floppy drives.

When I was on about the 10k file, the computer I used had a floppy drive, as did the technicians laptop, so what difference does it make? None. Even speed isn;t a problem. Yes, it would be quicker on a flash drive, but who cares if you have to wait 0.9 seconds longer to load it off a floppy.

I think they don;t have much choice at school but to have floppy drives. When you have 2000 people at a school with 300 people leaving and 300 new people coming each year, there are bound to be some people that for whatever reason need to use floppy disks with the computers. Maybe some of them only have an old computer which doesn;t have USB. Or maybe some people can't afford a flash drive so have to use the disks that they already have. (Don;t say that flash drives are cheap. There are people out there in the world that don;t have much money and would be much better off spending £10 on some pens and paper or school dinners).

Oh, and flash drives can go wrong. I have an 8mb compact flash card that seems to be going bad. It is true however that flash memory is much more reliable than magnetic storage. Magnetic disks arn;t always that bad though. I have many amiga disks that still work perfectly. I have had problems with some amiga disks recently but that is not surprising as the drives I was using were getting a bit past it and the disks that i was using were HD that were formatted as DD.

A big advantage of floppies is that you will actually know if the file is loading up or not. They make cool sounds and have a flashing light.

I also noticed how no one commented on me saying about how disks enable me to keep electronic copies of work along with paper copies because of their very thin size.

If you find a flash drive more appropriate than a floppy, then go ahead and use one. For most of my needs though, floppies are good enough, and therefore a flash drive is not needed. I am thinking about getting a flash drive as I'm sure I could find a use for one but still, all my <1mb files will still fit perfectly on floppies.