02-06-2003, 08:17 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 220
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Floppy disk drives will soon be history
Dell is not installing floppy drives on new computers starting next month. Check it out here:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...loppy_drives_3
I'm curious if any of the newer pda's come with software on 3 1/2" floppies. |
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02-07-2003, 12:16 AM
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Moderator
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 2,406
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Doesn't surprise me, especially since you can boot off CDs nowadays. I've never seen or heard of any PPC software being delivered on a floppy... don't know of many that would fit.
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02-07-2003, 04:50 AM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 1,220
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This doesn't affect me much personally and hope many other manufacturers follow in their footsteps. Floppies are slow and unreliable, but mostly just too dang small for today's files. I'd say about 95% of the data files I work with each day would not fit on a single floppy. Honestly, the only thing I've personally used a floppy for in the last year has been to flash the BIOS of a couple systems. They could boot to CD, but I didn't have any CD-RWs laying around and felt it wasn't worth wasting even a cheap CD-R for a 512 KB BIOS image that's only going to be used once.
These days, with networks becoming more common in homes, I hope the days of the floppy-based "SneakerNet" are numbered.
Dave
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Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
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02-07-2003, 05:03 AM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 82
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It's about time.
Yet I'm more interested in a gadget like the Sandisk Cruzer (same principle, but memory is a SD card) than in a fixed flash memory USB keychain drive. I'd rather bring that with me anywhere I go than my sync cable.
Problem is, I don't trust the Sandisk SD cards anymore.
Does anyone else make a similar device?
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02-07-2003, 05:49 AM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 1,220
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by taxus
Problem is, I don't trust the Sandisk SD cards anymore. Does anyone else make a similar device?
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Nor do I. The nice thing about the Cruzer is that it's really just an ordinary SD/MMC card reader; you can use any brand card in it. (Currently mine has a Lexar 64 MB card in it since the 256 MB SanDisk card that came with it died.)
Sorry for helping this thread even further off-topic. :-)
-- Dave
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Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
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02-10-2003, 01:25 AM
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Pupil
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 42
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by taxus
It's about time.
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That about sums it up. Floppies are not useful anymore. They're too small and sooner or later you get the dreadful "Read error" messages. Flash-based media and CD-RWs seem to be the way to go with portable storage nowadays. Those solutions are much more reliable and have much larger capacities. |
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02-10-2003, 05:27 AM
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Thinker
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 431
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geez, even as a student i never use the floppy for the past 1,5 years now, the most i used is the zip disk, which bty, is getting obselete now, i think the cruzer is a good replacement for the floppy!
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Be careful with what you wish, it might come true!
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02-10-2003, 02:54 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 135
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Wow, I must say, it is about time that someone is finally stopping floppy drives from being attached to their boxes. I have not had a floppy drive connected to any of my computers for well over a year. CD/RW is my method of backup for what I need saved in case of a crash. Plus, everything else I need to install is on this CD/DVD or that CD/DVD. Way to go Dell.
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02-10-2003, 04:32 PM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 1,096
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Well, I for one will go against the flow and say it's a mistake. Floppies, no matter how old, are still useful. They're insanely cheap, small to carry, and until now universal between PCs. I still use floppies for stuff like backing up my MS Money file, bringing small reports to class, etc. There's no reason whatsoever to do away with the drive when they retail for $20 measly bucks. They can't be saving much of anything. Most people buying one of these PCs would have no idea how to install one.
I really don't understand the resentment against floppy.
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02-10-2003, 04:52 PM
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Contributing Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 14,942
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Rirath
I really don't understand the resentment against floppy.
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Perhaps it's because the quality of floppies and floppy drives has steadily declined over the years. I now expect failures, unlike the old days when I truly depended on them.
--janak |
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