Death to the Floppy! Hurrah!

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Asher

And for the love of God, please find out how to quote properly.

He is boycotting quotes because he doesn't like the new system.

IIRC.

ACK!

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Asher
Why oh why would you use a floppy? Not only are they slow and limited on storage, but they're larger than USB storage devices and are FAR more likely to corrupt/lose data.

Boot floppies, emergency recovery diskettes, and so on. Don't leave home without them.

[CerberusIV]

The first computer I ever used (at university) filled a whole building and programs were a series of punch cards. I am writing this post on a PC that sits on my desk and is several thousand times more powerful (and reliable).

The 3.5" floppy is going the way of the 5.25" floppy, vinyl records, the 8-track, acetylene lighting on cars and gas lighting in houses. Another (better?) way of doing things came along. They aren't going to disappear overnight but they are going to disappear. One day you will be able to take your kids/grandchildren to a museum, point at the PC in a glass cabinet and say "I used to have one of those".

I would give monitors about 7-8 years before only flat screens are available and within 15 years CD's (of all types) will be gone too.

Get used to the idea and adapt.

[Az]

Most current CD drives can run minidisks as well.

aren't Minidisks placed in little boxes, like floppy diskettes?

[Wraith]

--"I'm suprised no ones mentioned the possibility that someone might need a boot disk"

You can boot from CD, or from those USB flash drives.

--"They are great for saving/transferring simple files, "

Well, they were convenient for it, but I wouldn't say great. Floppies are far from the sturdiest form of storage around. And unfortunately the constant software bloat makes the storage limits of floppies more and more constricting.

--"What do you think is going to happen in fifteen years "

NASA has already had that problem

--"I will never buy a computer without a floppy drive."

Well, again, the floppy drive will be an option, it's just not going to be part of the standard build.
Not sure why any of your other points require a floppy drive, though. You can do all of that without it.

I am starting to wonder why I'm participating in this argument though. I always build my computers anyway...

--"I also remember the 7" floppies that preceeded the the ubiquitous "five-and-a-quarters"."

You mean 8" floppies, right?
Course, my first computer had a cassette tape drive...

--"And plus why should I bother changing the boot order in my BIOS?"

Well, you may not have to. Depends on the manufacturer. Some of them do sensible BIOS settings, some don't.

Wraith
"Drat these modern computers, they're so naughty and complex. I could pinch them!"
-- Marvin the Martian

[uh Clem]

My 3.5" floppy stays precisely where it's been all these years, thank you.

And for your information, the lad still works as well as ever.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Boo!

Floppy's are still useful (and I like using them as opposed to CD-RWs).