The end of an era

Tannin

Tannin

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Joined
Jan 15, 2002
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Location
Huon Valley, Tasmania
Website
www.redhill.net.au
Yesterday, I built the first Red Hill Technology computer ever to ship without a floppy drive. (Not counting one or two in the past done that way by special request.)

Yes, it's the end of an era. As of 1st January, we no longer include a floppy in our new systems as standard equipment. And when I say something is useless and out of date, you can be sure that it's really out of date.

(We still use them in the workshop, of course, but it's just as easy to plug in one of our own drives for that, and also know that the drive is a good one and won't destroy the disc in it.)

Go on, all of you. Laugh at me!
 
Just now? :joker: I haven't had a FDD in my home system for over 3 years, and at work, we haven't ship FDDs as default items for at least 12 months (we only include them if requested)...
 
When I transferred my hardware from the "hernia buster" (server casing) 4 months ago, I decided not to re-install the floppy drive.

Why? I found I did not use it as often as before. So seldom, in fact, that I had to run format on a diskette/s as many as 4X before it would function correctly, usually ruining 2 or 3 diskettes in the process.

I earlier mentioned getting a loan to buy a PQI flash disk 2 months ago. Well, I use that now for the floppy's purpose.

You're right Tony, the day of the floppy has passed.

And welcome back from the outback! I didn't notice exactly when you started posting again. The Taiwan earthquake, the holidays and all...
 

But, it's best to invest in a USB-powered external floppy drive, just in case...



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I built my new system in November (2006) with a floppy drive. Still don't trust that it's not needed. I do have a USB floppy drive as well; it's a YE-Data and is rated 2x speed, which is apparent during use.
 
I've been building systems for money for about 10 years now (less than you guys, I know), and I can't remember EVER installing a floppy as standard. The last time I needed a floppy to install or run a piece of software was 1994!

Of course, I do have a USB one sitting around.
 
I put one on the machine I made last year and I'm putting one on the machine I'm building for my mom. In both cases the only reason is because I happen to have some spare floppies I bought on eBay a few years ago for something like $1 each. If not for that, I certainly wouldn't even have bothered. I think I used the drive once so far just to see if it was working properly. Yes, I still have some data on floppies but I'm guessing that whatever is still important to me has already been backed up on CD and also put on the hard disks of the machines I regularly use. If I haven't needed to look at something for a few years, chances are I never will, and will never need to read the floppy it's on. Still, nice knowing I can if need be....

I'm personally finding that the main thing I used floppies for (transferring data between machines) was first mostly displaced by CD-R and CD-RW, and then finally totally displaced by my network. So long as the machine has a NIC I see no need to use any other method for data transfer. And floppies have been useless for backup purposes for at least the last ten years. Although I haven't bought one yet, I would imagine a thumb drive would take care of those instances where a machine isn't on a network. Indeed, they have pretty much taken over the functions performed by Zip, Jazz, and LS120 drives also. The last possible use for a floppy might be to take data off a machine with no NIC, no Internet connection, and no USB port. I wonder how many such machines even exist, let alone are regularly used? Yes, it's safe to say the venerable floppy is obsolete. Now how long until all spinning disk storage is equally obsolete?
 
I'm afraid I can't see much point in a USB floppy drive. The whole point of floppies is tha they can boot any system, no matter how old, no matter how weird.

Why do I use floppies in the workshop? Speed. Dave, I absolutely guarantee you that I can prepare and format three or four new hard drives, or fix a master boot record, in less time than it takes you to do one.

Booting DOS from floppy remains a useful workshop technique - not something there is much point in recommending to end users, though.
 
Booting DOS (or Linux) from a CD (or USB thumbdrive) is nearly as easy and more tools can fit. And I certainly bet I can complete the aforementioned tasks faster than you if you first have to install the floppy drive ;)
 
The ONLY reason I've wanted a floppy in the last 3 years is to install SATA drivers during a Windows XP install.
 
I am still using Drive Image from floppies. Still installing floppy drives in some computers. One of the reasons is a program called Easy Restore. Insert the Easy Restore floppy, insert the CD with the Drive Image files on it, boot the computer. Three mouse clicks and the hard drive is formated and restored. "Even a Cave Man can do it". Keeps me from getting phone calls at 2AM.

Bozo :joker:
 
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