Floppy disks- anyone still use them?

Fat_Boy

Fifer wrote:

Bogglingly?

Hmmm that sounds better, thanks.

buses7675

Fifer wrote:

Youngsters. :rolleyes: I remember the major step forward that was the use of cassette tapes.

Hi All,

Yeah, I remember our Acorn Electron (still got it somewhere!) took about 10 mins to load any of the three games we had for it, Blockbusters, Bulls Eye or Overdrive! - Get a tape error and you'd have to start all over again!

Another problem with floppy disks too, especially if you are trying to copy photos is that, as well as being slow, some digital cameras take pics so detailed that any single image is over 1.44MB, so wouldn't even fit on one disk! Also you are far less likely to get a disk error on a USB flash pen drive, like you are with a floppy!

Pen Drives are also good for recycling, as they last longer (in theory forever?), you can use them again and again and as you can get more on a single disk they are smaller too and use less raw materials for the data storage - kind of!

Cheers

Steve

IvanOpinion

aurora_borealis wrote:

I've learned from bitter experience (2 chapter's worth) that the flash sticks are unreliable.

a-b, I have heard this and often the problem is that the person does not use the 'remove hardare' option corretly. For performance reasons windows stores loads o stuff in buffers in memory and then writes it out when it gets a bit of free time. The 'remove hardware' option forces windows to flush its buffers. If this is not done then data can be lost including total corruption of the drive.

ivan

Poppycat

I got rid of my floppy discs 6 months back. I hadnt used them in ages and most of the pcs at home dont have them anymore.

I remember when floopies where the only way to backup data, even when cd players were out (not writeable ones) they were well over a hundred quid proabbly about two hundred quid now in real terms in the early 90's.

Quasar

My oldest laptop, bought in 2000, is still in perfectly good order. Runs W98 and has floppy drive and read only CD drive. I have kept a few floppies as that lappy is still useful. I have an external floppy drive to connect to the other two lappies just to have everything in order...

Emmy

Yep...I still use them coz I like them

studentphil

Emmy wrote:

Yep...I still use them coz I like them

What do you like about them?

Janepig

Did you know that in America and (I think) Australia floppy disks are called "stiffies". DH was on a training course run by an American afew years ago and nearly died when the trainer asked "has anyone got a stiffie"!!!!! Just as well they're not in use as much now.

Jxxx

Emmy

studentphil wrote:

What do you like about them?

I just do.....some people like marmite...some don't...no reason ya just do

studentphil

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Janepig wrote:

Did you know that in America and (I think) Australia floppy disks are called "stiffies". DH was on a training course run by an American afew years ago and nearly died when the trainer asked "has anyone got a stiffie"!!!!! Just as well they're not in use as much now.

Jxxx