floppy drives...

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11-11-2001
doubleanti

floppy drives...

aha! a poll we haven't done yet!!!!!!!!!

so! do you think a floppy drive should still be considered an integral part of the system? i say yes because of tradition... that and some of my old boxes and BIOSes don't / might not support CD boot... and i don't have a bootable ME right now... and i can use old startup disks [98/5] to boot off A: with CD support for formats/reinstalls... so it's very useful...

and as a secondary question... anyone use/have zip/ls120 or other drives that double as floppy drives? thanks...
11-11-2001
jasrajva

anyway
to me blank CDS are cheaper than floppies and floppies i buy dont seem to last more than a few months

on last count i had about 50 floppies out of which atleast 40 were defunct
i threw them all away today after reading this poll

all floppies are destined to a wastebin...
11-11-2001
-KEN-

I love floppies...they ARE prety much an integral part of the system in my opnion.
11-11-2001
oskilian

of course it is!!!

floppies are fast, and every computer has a floppy drive (trust me, there are still some computers which don't have a CD drive), and not all computers have CD-R/RW drives, so, if I want to download some information from a computer which doesn't have a burner, I'm screwed!

Anyway, floppies are small, light, safe and fast!, so I still consider them as an integral part of my computer

Oskilian
11-11-2001
gamegod3001

CD''s are kind of hard to get into a computer, that your not suposed to aka the school.

On are related note: I have broken two of the pins for my floppy drive on my mother board, and I can't get a new mother board. So is there an inexpensive card, I could get that would allow me to have a floppy.
11-11-2001
DavidP

As long as we have files that take up less than one MB, and we will always have those (ex: word files, spreadsheets, etc.), floppy drives will be an integral part of the system.

Not all computers have a CD-RW, and even if they did, would you want to waste a CD just for a few files that take up a couple KB? With floppys, you can just slap it in, copy some files, and take them wherever you want. I have got all of Turbo Pascal 6.0 on one floppy, and Windows 1.0 on another floppy.

My computer science teacher was retiring last year, and so she was getting rid of all the old floppys that her students used. She has boxes full of students' old floppys. So now I have about 300 floppys that I can use. I will never need to buy another floppy in my life. It is great.

Even if floppys ever do go out of standard use, I will personally always have one. I love having old computer stuff (ex: those old 5-1/4 drives).
11-12-2001
Justin W

Quote:

So is there an inexpensive card, I could get that would allow me to have a floppy.

Probably the easiest solution would be to just pick up an external USB one. An old SCSI card is also an inexpensive option.

I think floppy drives are still pretty critical to troubleshooting as well as the points previously brought up. Bootable CDs are heaven sent when that is an option, but sometimes a floppy is a faster and easier solution (and sometimes the only one available). Some modern laptops, inparticular, require boot floppies if the HD has failed or been infected with a virus.
11-12-2001
Pendragon

[song]There's always a use...[musical pause] for a floppy...[/song]
11-12-2001
C_Coder

lol pendragon, very funny, humour like that you must be a girl
11-12-2001
ggs

I'm waiting for the day when I can go down to the local store and pick up one of those usb keychain drives... they'd definitely replace the floppy and to a great extent the cd-r for me.
11-12-2001
doubleanti

what are those? i've not heard of them... seems interesting... that, and i think pen [and possibly me] are the only girl[s] left... now that cg and michelle have been... left...
11-12-2001
Pendragon

Quote:

lol pendragon, very funny, humour like that you must be a girl

Well, yes I am but I actually thought that was a pretty limp joke.:p

The DA gender mystery continues...:p ;)
11-12-2001
C_Coder

yes limp is more appropriate than lame in this case(not me personally of course!!!!!) keep up the good jokes
11-12-2001
doubleanti

hey penny... [can i call you that? or 'pen'... don't think i formally asked...]... what do you think i am? so far as gender... just curious... bye bye...
11-12-2001
ggs

With the USB keychain drive thingy, you just plug it into the usb port and it's mapped as another hard disk on your sys until you pull it out. The sizes I've seen have been 32 meg, 64 meg and 128 meg.. and with USB transfer speeds, they'd be much better than floppies. Not to mention the tiny keychain size. But I just haven't seen any in stores.. but something as good as this can't stay hidden forever.
11-12-2001
Pendragon

I don't rightly know DA.

My first guess would be to say you were a bloke because the overwhelming majority of people on this site are of the male gender...
However I recall that noone guessed I was female for ages until I'd spelled it out a bakers dozen or two...

...Hmm.

Gender chameleon?:D :p
11-12-2001
Pendragon

Hmm...

...smart, funny, intelligent.. gotta be female!;)

-Pen

P.S. No that was not my final answer...
11-12-2001
doubleanti

yeah, but now i think the butterfly might give it away... [i just never really paid attention to you... but did note you however...]

hey ggs! are they cheap?! that's genius!!! if they are also compact and can be chained... my oh my... genius... keep me updated on how that ends up willya? via PMs... THANKS!!!
11-12-2001
Yoshi

Some systems needs floppies to boot up installations (ie. Linux)
11-12-2001
doubleanti

engi, reading too quickly your yoshistory reads 'yoshi is history...' hehe... [don't get me wrong, i LOVE yoshi!!!]

>...smart, funny, intelligent..

thanks... that's sweet to say... [even with the gotta be female part... sometimes i wonder...! :)]

final answer? never!!!

can't wait until those things get cheap...

and oh good one engi... i'm not a linux-er so i wouldn't have known. but now i know, and the more you know...
11-13-2001
-KEN-

so can you ONLY buy those at that site? that sucks...I need one noooowwwww :) (ahhh...programmers and their toys :))
11-13-2001
Pendragon

I've got the fad with gadgets...

...I desperately want something that's new for a month or two and if I can resist that long I decide I don't want it. The thing is i can't resist!!!
11-13-2001
doubleanti

heeey! it would be considered a 'techie-gadget' woudln't it?! well i didn't notice, and i would have the genuine use... [whenever i get my complicated laboratory filled with a bunch of computers i need to transfer from... probably servers of some sort... :) i do have the use, and if it's cool looking then yippie... i'd love to have it for an external backup of all my source code/data files... it'd be so cool! i'd keep it in a nice closed box... etc... tee-hee...
11-13-2001
Yoshi

>engi, reading too quickly your yoshistory reads 'yoshi is >history...' hehe... [don't get me wrong, i LOVE yoshi!!!]

Yoshisstory? It spells with 2 s's

Get it? Yoshi's Story:)
11-13-2001
*Michelle*

Quote:

Originally posted by DavidP

Not all computers have a CD-RW, and even if they did, would you want to waste a CD just for a few files that take up a couple KB?

But you can use CD-RWs, you can record over the old stuff..

Not that I don't like floppies, they are the best, esp. when you go to an EXTREMELY OLD school whose computers have no CD-ROM drives *sigh*. Actually, they don't even let us use floppies, so we have to use email to send stuff back and forth... But floppies really are the best. I couldn't believe the stupid mac comps have no floppy drives, geez, who would buy those things... (sorry if I offend any mac lovers out there) They are the most convenient things to store portable files. THe only drawback is that they can't store more that 1.44 mb, is it mb? So, I really hope floppies survive...
btw, my cd-rw drive is rusting...
11-14-2001
oskilian

but, what I dislike about floppies is that there is a huge possibility of losing your data, specially when using 20 disk spanned zip files (that's why I normally use RAR's). I say use floppies when your data is not so important, or when it's the only copy of it.

But, strangely, one day, I did a diskette endurance test. It consisted on testing a disk under several endurance tests, The disk had to survive a test, and then tryi it on the computer and see if it still worked. the disk survived the following(is ascending order from the easiest task to the toughest):

-Open disk (physically) and closing it.
-Let some water drops fall on the surface (the black data film) of the disk
-Placing the disk in a fan and turning it on (the fan, not the disk)
-Using a magnet
-Placing the disk in a very high radiation level zone (behind a computer screen)
-Fingerprints
-Erasable marker
-Permanent marker
-Static energy (the front panel of a Big Screen TV)
-Falling from 1m (3 feet)
-Falling from stairs
-Falling from a fifth floor
-Being bitten by a dog (we didn't do this one, but we wanted to :) )

It survived all that (ask nullshinji or Camilo if you want to check the truthness of these facts). but, when we tested the same disk on a tougher test (Scandisk), the disk didn't survive and it stopped working.

Oskilian
11-14-2001
doubleanti

wow... i'm speechless... i'd have never thought someone could so thoughly test a disk physically... :)
11-14-2001
-KEN-

I just pulled out my friend's disk which was thoroughly bitten by his dog, and it worked...

of course now it's stuck in my drive!!!

HASAFRAGGIN OPPASAHAGER!!!!
11-14-2001
-KEN-

Ahhhh, never underestimate the powers of needle-nosed pliers, my friends.
11-14-2001
oskilian

But no disk can survive the "Floppy terror", also known as "Scandisk".

Oskilian
11-14-2001
itld

the ultimate floppy test is
"sit in the garage since 1984 - mouse s***, water, bugs(real ones), and then out in the pasture as paint ball targets.
for some reason the light on my floppy drive won't go off now.
M.R.
11-14-2001
oskilian

you really did that? LOL

Oskilian
11-14-2001
itld

i have five kids, a dog and 2 horses within 100 feet of my box, that floppy test is only the stuff i know they did.
the next chapter is destructive testing of a pIII 233...
11-14-2001
oskilian

OK, but a pIII 233? I thought Pentium 3's started at 500 MHz

Oskilian
11-14-2001
Shag

5 1/4" floppy disks make great frisbies ....
11-14-2001
itld

i apologize to oskilian. my sarcasam got the best of me.
11-14-2001
doubleanti

hehe... i believed you! :) well the horses bit is a bit far out... but you never know where someone is from... :) [*cough* or what gender they are *cough*]...
11-15-2001
itld

really, 2 horses. i live so far out in the boonies that if my modem connects at more than 24k i call all of my buddies to bragt about it.
11-15-2001
Camilo

Yes, I testify Oskilian said the truth, that was a nice day, only scandisk damaged it.

There are some 2.88 MB floppy drives, where can I get one?

Camilo
(the floppy defender)
11-16-2001
oskilian

I'm looking foreward to making another one of these "Endurance test", any ideas out there?

Oskilian