What Has Your Floppy Drive Done for You Lately?

[Jason Dunn]

<a href="http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,103037,tk,dn072402X,00.asp">http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,103037,tk,dn072402X,00.asp</a><br /><br />Very interesting article on why floppy drives just won't die. I have to wonder why the reporter didn't press the OEMs on obvious floppy replacements like CompactFlash, SD, etc.<br /><br />"Floppy drives were once an indispensable part of personal computing. But not anymore: 21 years after the introduction of the 3 1/2-inch floppy disk, the floppy drive looks to be on the brink of extinction. But in spite of the floppy's creep toward obsolescence, PC makers aren't ready to give up on them--yet. Less than 10 percent of us store data on a stingy 1.44 megabyte disk, according to Disk/Trend, a market research firm. And that number is falling: storage-media manufacturer Maxell says the floppy industry is shrinking at a rate of 5 percent yearly.<br /><br />"Floppies are too small for MP3 files, and good luck putting a PowerPoint presentation on one," says Jim Porter, president of Disk/Trend. Four years ago Apple was bold enough to ditch the floppy drive altogether with its iMac computer. It hasn't looked back since, eliminating the floppy drive from all subsequent systems. However, Apple's attitude is hardly contagious among Windows-based PC makers. No matter how much companies such as IBM dislike the floppy drive, they continue to stand behind them."

[butch]

I've no Floppy drive on my computers since 1998!
I've used ZIP and now CD to boot in a simple DOS environnement...

But I'm dreaming of the day we will be able to boot from those KeyChain-USB-Memory-things! That would be great and fast... Every new OS support them natively... We just need an option in our BIOS now!

[gwinter]

So, how about posting here card readers that fit into the 3.5" drive bay? Anyone has any experience with those?

[Arne Hess]

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,103037,tk,dn072402X,00.asp

Very interesting article on why floppy drives just won't die. I have to wonder why the reporter didn't press the OEMs on obvious floppy replacements like CompactFlash, SD, etc.
I still love my Floppy! The last time I used it is 4 months ago when I've crashed my Notebook XP and need it to run FDISK. Without my Floppy I had to throw away my 2.500 € Notebook and hey, the Floppy wasn't in the box when I purchased it, it was an accessory (which I purchased anyway as a C64 Datasette guy ;-)

However, your idea of the "bootable" CF/SD card is great too (at least for Notebooks) but as "Butch" also wrote, we need a BIOS switch at all!
My one still shows me Copyrights from the 80's... ;-)

[mookie123]

here is what I want to know, How come there is almost no single laptop that has built in SD slot? Sony has one with Memstick, but really...

[JJ]

I used my floppy drive only four days ago to hand off our church logo to a church co-worker. I won't even think twice about giving her the 1.44 MB disk, but you would need to cut my hands off to take away my precious 128 MB CF card.

[Sven Johannsen]

So, how about posting here card readers that fit into the 3.5" drive bay? Anyone has any experience with those?

Yea, they are on the shelf at CompUSA for about $80. They have two slots and handle Type I, II, and III PCCards. Usually use one PCI slot for the controller and fit in a 3.5" bay. Mine works great. Use it with various adapters to read and write to PC card, CF, SD, MMC and even a Click drive. Even used it once for network connectivity. My NIC died suddenly (lightning in the area, and I was up as usual), so I threw a 802.ll PCMCIA card in a slot and was back on the network till I could get a new PCI NIC.

On the floppy issue, I'll give them up when you can assure me the PC will actually boot from and load an OS from the CD. I've got several that won't. Floopies are still cheap and easy for small file sharing. A picture, a word doc, a screen saver. None of the replacements really lend themselves to that casual give-away that floppies do. Yea, I know that CD's are actually cheaper, but I still have problems burning a 70K file to a CD to give to someone, especially since he can't erase it and give it back with something else on it. (CDRWs are still more $ than floppies)

[Charles Pickrell]

Yeah, dump the floppy and add SD or CF slots.

[Master O'Mayhem]

There were a few ultra portable devices (laptops) that came with both a CF and PCMCIA slot. The IBM X something come to mind

[JMountford]

First of all how falic are computers?
You have a floppy drive. But Hard drives are better. Bigger is better. And floppies just don't do the deal like a hard drive.

But anyway. I prefere an LS120 to a standard floppy and I am considering upgrading my zip 100 to an internal 250. Standard floppies should go, but they won't because PC users and manufacturers can not decide on an alternative standard plain and simple.

[cparekh]

Yeah, I've got an IBM Thinkpad x20, and it has a PCMICA reader and CF reader built in. As an ultralight notebook, so it has no other drives. I have a CD in the base, but not floppy. I have had this set up for over a year, and I have not missed the floppy.

Of course, I am on a corporate LAN, and so can transfer files via FTP and over the LAN.

Cp

[grogma]

I've no Floppy drive on my computers since 1998!
I've used ZIP and now CD to boot in a simple DOS environnement...

But I'm dreaming of the day we will be able to boot from those KeyChain-USB-Memory-things! That would be great and fast... Every new OS support them natively... We just need an option in our BIOS now!

I've been told but have not independently verified that the latest IBM laptops can already do this (boot from usb memory keys).

[gwinter]

here is what I want to know, How come there is almost no single laptop that has built in SD slot? Sony has one with Memstick, but really...

I'm very sure there is at least one. I saw it on a website a few months ago. It was a Toshiba laptop but perhaps it was just for the Japanese market. And also, one of my friends has a Toshiba notebook that has built-in SmartMedia slot.


This reminds me of the audio cassette. Today we have CDs, MDs, CD-Rs, MP3 player and all kinds of format, yet cassettes are still everywhere and not dying. Just think how old the format is...

[klinux]

Flashing of BIOS is still done via floppies. Urg.

Also, QNX has a full OS that fits on one single floppy disk.

Lastly, with all the technology that is available in my household (laptop,desktop, XP, Mac, PPC, 802.11b, CDRW, CF, MMC, etc...), my wife is still demanding a floppy in our PC. URG. :)

[PPCRules]

I don't see the big deal about getting rid of something just because you might not need it. Wait until the time you do need it; it will be worth having it there. The cost is minimal, even with the lower price of PCs. And except for notebook PCs, the space they take isn't that big a deal. So what's the problem leaving it as standard equipment?

Remember the "legacy free" push a couple years ago? I generally think you can sell people anything with the right marketing, but I'm glad people didn't bite on that as being a "feature" ("less is more", maybe?). The even bigger looser than the person who invests in a PC without a floppy drive is the one who ends up without a serial or parallel port, and ends up buying adapters to get the job done, all to save the manufacturer a buck or two on the motherboard.

If Macs were bought by rational people rather than cultists, iMac would had flopped. First you pay extra to buy this ugly one-piece computer, but then have to pay $125 (typical at the time) for an EXTERNAL USB floppy drive, thereby negating the all-in-one design. This, however, IS a case study of selling people anything with the right marketing.

[HR]

It's still an indispensable device when you have to carry files around between computers and don't know anything about their capabilities, or know they are old. I know we are all geeks and have the latest PCs, fast connections and advanced technical skills. But the rest of the non-geeky world is only catching up slowly. There is still no common, ubiquitous universal read/write standard like the floppy. When one is ready to replace the floppy disk, or alternatively, when mega-fast online connection and storage will be available for every computer/device, then it will disappear for good.

[heov]

why don't desktops just start getting PCMCIA slots. I mean, almost all laptops have them... But they should start making cheap 5MB plastic cards so that I can give a friend the card, and not worry about not returning it...

[Charles Pickrell]

If Macs were bought by rational people rather than cultists, iMac would had flopped. First you pay extra to buy this ugly one-piece computer, but then have to pay $125 (typical at the time) for an EXTERNAL USB floppy drive, thereby negating the all-in-one design. This, however, IS a case study of selling people anything with the right marketing.

The iMac was sold primarily to new Macintosh users who had owned old IBM compatible computers. The iMac was more of a statement from the consumer to the PC industry that we wanted something easy-to-use, new and different. The lame PC industry couldn't come up with ANYTHING innovative or differnet. Microsoft made great strides with ease of use in Windows XP but that was about it. Apple did a great job with the iMac and I'm so glad they got rid of the floppy. Just because I might use doesn't mean that I want to. I have an Airport network at home that serves all of my PCs. I can't remember the last time I used a floppy there.

[butch]

So, how about posting here card readers that fit into the 3.5" drive bay? Anyone has any experience with those?

Omniflash make some internal memory card readers
http://omniflashdistribution.ca/merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=O&Product_Code=FO-IN-FO&Category_Code=IR

[Charles Pickrell]

PCMCIA interface for floppy bay:
http://www.amtron.com/reader/pc750.htm

Multiformat drive:
http://www.provantage.com/scripts/go.dll/-s/ffcflash

[possmann]

How long has this been around? I mean either someone come out with a floppy that can really handle some capacity, or let's move onto something else - like the reference to a 5MG CF card - or why don't we just use the 16MG CF cards out there now as a "base" rather than a floppy?

I seriously cannot remember the last time I used a floppy for anything...

[welmoed]

My sewing machine is the main reason I use floppy disks. The Viking Designer 1 reads regular floppy disks, which contain machine embroidery designs that you write from your computer and read into the machine's memory via floppy. Recently our users group had a big discussion over whether this was "obsolete technology" and there were some people who are electing not to purchase a TOL embroidery machine, but I figure that even if floppies are ultimately obsolete in five years, I will have gotten five years of enjoyment from my machine. And besides, who says I need to rush and upgrade just because the latest and greatest is released? If current technology works for me, I don't have to upgrade. Heck I still have friends who happily surf the web on their 486's.

[Steven Cedrone]

I've no Floppy drive on my computers since 1998!
I've used ZIP and now CD to boot in a simple DOS environnement...

But I'm dreaming of the day we will be able to boot from those KeyChain-USB-Memory-things! That would be great and fast... Every new OS support them natively... We just need an option in our BIOS now!

Although I haven't tried it, my DiskOnKey supposedly can be used as a boot disk (From the web site FAQ):

Can the DiskOnKey be used as a bootdisk?

Yes. Some BIOS versions currently support the DiskOnKey as a bootable device. Two well known O/S's are from Compaq and IBM (Phoenix BIOS). There may be others that support the DiskOnKey as a bootable device. It is recommended to contact your BIOS vendor to check for capability.

Steve

Also, check some of the white papers on the Phoenix website about bootable devices....

[sweetpete]

Flashing of BIOS is still done via floppies. Urg.


Umm ... Intel mobo's allow you to flash without floppy from within the Win OS. If you run another OS and if you can boot from other devices, you could place your BIOS flash on that device anyway (i.e. USB keychain)

[JonnoB]

here is what I want to know, How come there is almost no single laptop that has built in SD slot? Sony has one with Memstick, but really...

Some of the current model Toshiba notebooks have SD. The portege 4010 line for example also includes choice of BT or WiFi and has integrated FireWire and SD slot standard.

The Satellite 6100 has SD too. See this link (http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/pc/pc_prodDetail.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1361655439.1027628515@@@@&BV_EngineID=fadcejdhejmmbfekcghcfmfdglk.0&comm=ST&plin=Portables&pfam=Small%20Business%20Series&poid=222614&Adoid=167882) for details...

drool

[mterlouw]

Pretty much the only time I use my floppy is when I install Windows. I have to manually load my RAID driver from a floppy when the text-mode setup begins. Unfortunately this is enough to make me completely dependent on the FDD, but I wouldn't complain too much if OEM's ommitted the drive so long as they provide the connector on the motherboard.

Iwill (mobo mfg.) provides a DOS utility for flashing the BIOS, so I don't need the floppy drive for that.

[bitbank]

For me, the floppy disk is still perfect for doing daily backups of my source code projects. Then I do a weekly backup onto CD. I can usually fit 4 projects on a floppy disk which is the most I work on in a single week anyway.

I wish the LS120 format had caught on, but paying more than a few cents per floppy disk is just too much; that is why the format continues to survive.

AOL is probably responsible for keeping it alive also since people have been recycling those free diskettes for quite a while.

L.B.

[heov]

I think the LS120 drive isn't doing good is the speed. Isn't it the same speed as a floppy? That would suck trying to save a couple of MP3's. What we need is an open standard like PCMCIA and CF, not ZIP and others that companies have to pay royalties for...

[daninnj]

Heh...how funny that I see this topic here, just after watching The Net (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0113957) in which Angela Bennett gets a disk from a friend and then hackers who want that disk ruin her life...

Anyway, I think floppy disks are useful. The disk drive is found in almost every computer, and not everyone has a zip drive or a cd-rw compatable cd drive.

I remember when I was in school a few years ago, I had a computer class. Our school wasn't hooked up with a network each week, we had to save our docs on a disk. Then, I went into middle school and they had a network hooked up. It was much better.

But sometimes, I needed to finish the project home. The computer where I transfer stuff to and from my Pocket PC was not hooked up to the network. CD burning can get me banned if I tried it in school. I couldn't bring in any cds. The school didn't have any fancy drives like a zip drive. So I had to use a floppy disk.

One time, I was able to store a 15 slide PowerPoint pres, a 10 page Word doc, and a high-res photo without compression onto a 1.44mb floppy. I got the work done at home, and had to bring two floppy disks back (the PowerPoint pres had double the slides in it). It worked.

So my point is that floppy drives are useful to me, and I can never use a computer without one. I only use my cd-rw drive to make music cds, and I make a lot of docs that are less than 1.44mb, so I use them a lot (not like in the mid 90s though).

...And if you read though this, you are prob bored as heck... :sleeping:

DanInNJ

[rubberdemon]

My Toshiba 5000 has a smartmedia and SD slot, which are great for my digital camera/ipaq, but I don't use them the same way I would have used a floppy drive. The computer came with a USB floppy that I have never unwrapped from its packaging. When I get floppies from clients (rarely - I always ask them to use email, but there's one company...) I have to use my wife's dell over the network to read them...

The cost of media is an important issue though - which someone raised. I could give people CDs and floppies and not expect anything back, but I'm not going to mail a USB flash disk or CF card and not worry about its return. In the absence of a high-capacity, cheap, ubiquitous storage format, maybe networking will be the answer - when everyone has Wifi, BT, IR, email etc. then files can be transferred without any storage media necessary. I already use this most of the time with people I want to exchange files with.

[mookie123]

Here I what I dont' get

Why can't they sell those old 2-4Mb SD at $2 or 3 a piece. That would replace diskette for sure. Sell them in pack of 10 for $25. I bet those 2-4mb SD will sell by the bushel for those who need to toss around storage like diskette.

Not everybody needs 512mb SD to act as PDA hardrive.

[Kre]

The cost of media is an important issue though...

Thats exactly why floppy technology wont die. Although the capacity isnt great, its the cheapest way to go. CDRWs are often times overkill when wanting to store a few files, like using an empty warehouse to store half a dozen boxes, so most people wont justify the cost of using those and just passing them out like napkins. Floppies however, are so cheap, that nobody cares about handing those over to someone.

Ive seen Imations mini CDRs which are pretty cool, but those arent very cheap either. Mini CDRs would probably be a great alternative to floppies, though... their capacity is only 185MB which is roomy but not overkill like regular CDRs and CDRWs. Theyre really small and portable which is good. But theyre not RWs, just one time recordables which is not useful compared to the RW format of a floppy. Not to mention theyre almost $2 a piece which is too expensive. If Imation can create these mini CDs in a RW format and drop the price considerably, then theyd be a perfect alternative (small, RW, roomy but not overkill, and cheap} to the old, tired floppy.

[lawnman]

I don't see the big deal about getting rid of something just because you might not need it. Wait until the time you do need it; it will be worth having it there. The cost is minimal, even with the lower price of PCs. And except for notebook PCs, the space they take isn't that big a deal. So what's the problem leaving it as standard equipment?

Remember the "legacy free" push a couple years ago? I generally think you can sell people anything with the right marketing, but I'm glad people didn't bite on that as being a "feature" ("less is more", maybe?). The even bigger looser than the person who invests in a PC without a floppy drive is the one who ends up without a serial or parallel port, and ends up buying adapters to get the job done, all to save the manufacturer a buck or two on the motherboard.

If Macs were bought by rational people rather than cultists, iMac would had flopped. First you pay extra to buy this ugly one-piece computer, but then have to pay $125 (typical at the time) for an EXTERNAL USB floppy drive, thereby negating the all-in-one design. This, however, IS a case study of selling people anything with the right marketing.

Hey now. . .watch the Mac bashing. I happen to love my iLamp. . .eerrrr iMac :o

[klinux]

PPCrules: Yeah, you are also using PPC because you are cultist and that Microsoft can sell you anything with the right marketing right??? :roll:

So let's all go eaaasy on the generalizations, alright? :P

[Rob Alexander]

It's funny to read this as I've just finished struggling for over 6 months to get the floppy working on a new P4 computer. WinXP couldn't read from it (kept insisting the diskette wasn't formatted) and the system wouldn't boot on it. It was finally successfully resolved this week. It matters because my students bring me assignments on floppies when they need help with them, and because I boot from a floppy to make (or restore from) a Ghost image of my system. I don't store any of my own work on them or carry them back and forth between work and home (I use a little 20GB USB2 HDD for that... an amazing little product, smaller than my iPaq 3760 8) ), but I still couldn't live without one.

What this thread shows is that the floppy serves a lot of different needs, all of which need to be met before something can replace the floppy.

A floppy replacement...

1. ...must be ubiquitous. It simply won't work unless you know that everyone has one. That's why you can't really "replace" the floppy. Before anything could, it would have to co-exist with the floppy for a number of years, but would have to come on all new systems during that time. Until that happens, we're years away from a replacement.

2. ...must have cheap media. Several people have mentioned that they need to be able to give someone a file on something they don't need back. Too true. My guess is the media would need to cost no more than about $1 per physical unit before people will toss them around casually.

3. ...be bootable. Look, you may not boot on your floppy often, but when you need to, you really need to. Sometimes, it's to update your BIOS. Sure you say it updates from Windows, but what if Windows won't start? Sometimes, it's to create or restore a Ghost image. Sometimes, it's to remove a boot sector virus. Sure they're not every day tasks, but you need some way to do these things.

I would love to be rid of floppies forever, but it's not going to happen for me or for most others until something comes along to replace the functionality the floppy currently provides.

[juni]

Useful at work if a computer won't boot from a cd (we have 1000+ workstations and it happens all the time). Has saved us many a times when there is a need to reformat and install a new ghost image (I made a floppy that enables network - our support people can install a ghost image from the network).

I wouldn't do away with the floppy quite yet.

[Kre]

What this thread shows is that the floppy serves a lot of different needs, all of which need to be met before something can replace the floppy.

A floppy replacement...

1. ...must be ubiquitous. It simply won't work unless you know that everyone has one. That's why you can't really "replace" the floppy. Before anything could, it would have to co-exist with the floppy for a number of years, but would have to come on all new systems during that time. Until that happens, we're years away from a replacement.

I agree and disagree with this statement. It does need to be ubiquitous. But we`re not years away from a replacement. The replacement has been staring us in the face for years. CDRWs, and note Im not saying CDRs, are superior to floppies, and perhaps apart from a slight price difference, quite frankly are the replacement. I dont know of anybody who will buy a computer without one of these anymore. As we know, many of these drives are also combo drives that play DVDs as well.

Businesses often times dont have CDR/W drives on client systems, but most people in the work place dont need this, except for those who absolutely need it, like administrators, executives, graphics designers, and so on... most workers simply need a CDROM drive, and virtually every computer has that, or can be easily and inexpensively upgraded with one. Often times, businesses purposely configure their computers without R/W capability of any kind via CDR/W or floppy because either they dont want workers to possess the ability to conveniently save mass quantities or very large files of proprietary company data to a CDR/W to take off premises, or very simply, workers just dont need it, and opting for a CDROM drive instead of a CDR/W reduces overall system cost.

CDRW drives have coexisted with the floppy drive forever and a day. And CDRW drives are not difficult or expensive to acquire. Users can install these drives into older computers, but apart from this, there is nothing anyone can do about the old computers that dont have them, other than users upgrading them. Obviously, like anything else, it would be each users responsibility to do this. The bottom line here regarding the floppy, is that at some point we`re going to have to let go. Its always difficult to do so with a technology thats been around for so long.


2. ...must have cheap media. Several people have mentioned that they need to be able to give someone a file on something they don't need back. Too true. My guess is the media would need to cost no more than about $1 per physical unit before people will toss them around casually.

I agree. Most good brand name CDRW media, like Imation, runs around a buck and a half a piece. This is cheap, yet it needs to be even cheaper in price, but not in quality.


3. ...be bootable. Look, you may not boot on your floppy often, but when you need to, you really need to. Sometimes, it's to update your BIOS. Sure you say it updates from Windows, but what if Windows won't start? Sometimes, it's to create or restore a Ghost image. Sometimes, it's to remove a boot sector virus. Sure they're not every day tasks, but you need some way to do these things.

I agree. And CDRWs will do this. Nothing is perfect, though. Sometimes a computer may not respond to a CD for different reasons, like a driver not being loaded into the right system file or incorrect BIOS settings, either of which would prevent the computer from recognizing the drive as a bootup device. But then again, floppies can easily become corrupted in a variety of ways. So nothing is completely immune from trouble, but such is the reality of computing.



As I mentioned in an earlier post, I think the mini CDR foreshadows an improvement upon CDRW, in the way that physically theyre much smaller, and storage wise, the minis are roomy but not overkill, as a person doesnt always need all of the storage space for files that a full CDRW provides. But I say `foreshadows` because they need to be RW, not just once recordable, and they need to drop in price by about 50%.

[PPCRules]

... I think the mini CDR foreshadows an improvement upon CDRW, in the way that physically theyre much smaller, and storage wise, the minis are roomy but not overkill, as a person doesnt always need all of the storage space for files that a full CDRW provides. But I say `foreshadows` because they need to be RW, not just once recordable, and they need to drop in price by about 50%. Mini CD-RW's are indeed available, even COMPUSA has them in the stores. Don't know the price right off, but not outrageous (still more than $1 each).

The one I like is the business card sized CD-R/CD-RW (3" CD with both sides lopped off); works right in your CD-RW drive. Now if CD-RW drives did indeed became ubiquitous, this would be nice. I never could get my floppy disks to fit in my wallet...

[Kre]

... I think the mini CDR foreshadows an improvement upon CDRW, in the way that physically theyre much smaller, and storage wise, the minis are roomy but not overkill, as a person doesnt always need all of the storage space for files that a full CDRW provides. But I say `foreshadows` because they need to be RW, not just once recordable, and they need to drop in price by about 50%.

Mini CD-RW's are indeed available, even COMPUSA has them in the stores. Don't know the price right off, but not outrageous (still more than $1 each).

The one I like is the business card sized CD-R/CD-RW (3" CD with both sides lopped off); works right in your CD-RW drive. Now if CD-RW drives did indeed became ubiquitous, this would be nice. I never could get my floppy disks to fit in my wallet...

Oh, I havent seen those. Weird... Im usually really informed of whats out there. I wonder how I missed those... Well anyway, thats cool. But yeah, over $1 each is still too much.

I have seen the credit card sized ones, and those are cool.

I still believe though, that if we want to bury the floppy disk once and for all, we need to let go. Steve Jobs was the first, so to speak, at least in terms of the industry, and the rest of the industry needs to follow his lead. Its got to happen sometime.

[HR]

CD-R/CD-RW, mini-CD-R, DVD-RW, DVD-R, these are all valid technologies. Technology is hardly the problem. The problem is a ubiquitous standard. Once every PC would be equipped with _________ (fill in the blank) technology, then floppies will go away.

[Jason Dunn]

CD-R/CD-RW, mini-CD-R, DVD-RW, DVD-R, these are all valid technologies. Technology is hardly the problem. The problem is a ubiquitous standard. Once every PC would be equipped with _________ (fill in the blank) technology, then floppies will go away.

And that's exactly the problem - everyone is waiting for someone else to make the first move. It would be interesting to see combo 3.5" floppy and CF or SD slot drives - a gentle transition from one technology to another...