Long live the floppy disc!

[ppppenguin]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8651750.stm

Another use for them. Installing a motherboard Raid driver on a PC when you're installing XP. Never did find a way to do it from USB or CD. Had to fit a floppy drive. At least the PC had a floppy interface on the mobo.

[Rob_Lewis]

There's lots of UNIX & LINUX servers out there of a certain age which absolutely rely on their FDDs to recover if the OS gets lost. And as the drives are very rarely used, in a dusty environment they very often fail just when you need them! I can imagine floppies dying soon at the domestic level, but not for some time with legacy machines.

[HMV 1120]

Well, every machine at college still has a FDD, even if I seem to be the only person using them (along with a few staff). Still, for carrying coursework and essays around they're ideal. The home machine had a usb stick, but the usb ports are at floor level. Predictably it got stood on. So, with 80+ blank discs here (about £15) I'm doing my best to use 'em!

As an aside, there's always a handful of emails doing the rounds each week along the lines of "Lost:USB stick : contains ALL my coursework and urgent essay etc". I've yet to lose a floppy...

[Aub]

Until 2 years ago, i was an engineer for IBM on their X-series of servers. We used to flash the bios and other firmware, from floppy discs.

Cheers

Aub

[GMB]

I still back-up on floppy drives (for stuff I've typed - there's a limit to how much one can type in a day!).

I think floppy disc is still one of the leading storage formats for life expectancy. I can't think of a modern media that can be expected to outlive them.

[julie_m]

About 6 years ago, I built up a couple of dozen machines from parts (it worked out cheaper than paying the Microsoft tax!) for our Telesales department. I didn't bother putting floppy drives in any of them.

My desktop machine actually has a floppy drive; but seeing as I never compiled the kernel module for it, it's purely decorative!

[newlite4]

Our fleet of Agilent 54621A oscilloscopes use floppy discs. They were commissioned in 2001, we have 48 of them. Talks are underway to replace them since they are technically obsolete because of this.
Neil

[jjl]

Originally Posted by GMB

I think floppy disc is still one of the leading storage formats for life expectancy. I can't think of a modern media that can be expected to outlive them.

I think USB FLASH sticks at least approach floppies for reliability if they are not abused or worn out by repeated writing. In principle, FLASH memory will eventually self erase due to leakage and / or particle bombardment but in practice, FLASH memory can be expected to retain its contents for well over a decade.

John

[GMB]

Flash comes close - but my experience is that USB flash sticks can massively malfunction without any software noticing, in a way that doesn't happen with floppies.

It turns out to be quite hard to verify them thanks to all the caching that goes on. I had some examples that consistently dropped bits all over the place. The only way to find out was to dismount them and then read the data back and compare. I would have hoped they had some kind of CRC check - but it seems they don't.

[AC/HL]

Not wanting to be left out, my Sony digital camera uses a floppy as it's storage. I had to specify a floppy drive as an extra with my Dell PC.

[Dave Moll]

Originally Posted by jjl

I think USB FLASH sticks at least approach floppies for reliability if they are not abused...

My experience is that they are more resilient to abuse than floppies. As an example, I inadvertently left one in a shirt pocket which went through the wash about four times before I discovered it rattling around in the bottom of the drum. Despite a bit of rust round the USB connector, it continued to work fine after being left to dry out - even the content remained intact. Try doing that with a floppy!

[KeithsTV]

Originally Posted by newlite4

Our fleet of Agilent 54621A oscilloscopes use floppy discs. They were commissioned in 2001, we have 48 of them. Talks are underway to replace them since they are technically obsolete because of this.
Neil

We still use Agilent 54622As as general purpose scopes. I have a stock of recycled floppies to use with them and the Sony digital camera we have (although I prefer to use the new Canon camera we have).

I have found that when formatting floppies I always do a full format as this will allow bad sectors to be ignored. I've had a lot of floppies that have had to throw out because of too many bad sectors.

Keith

[ScopeMonkey]

Originally Posted by newlite4

... technically obsolete because of this.

Seems a strange route to take - it's only Sony that have stopped making floppies. As has been pointed out elsewhere on the web, the leading supplier of floppies in Europe is actually Verbatim, who aren't stopping making them.

[brenellic2000]

Still can't beat a 5-1/4" floppy for survivability! The number of times I've driven an office chair over one - and they still work! Can't do that with a 3-1/2"! I've had more failed 3-1/2" discs than ever did with 5-1/4"s. Progess, eh?!

Barry

[HMV 1120]

Never mind Sony's 12 million figure for last years sales (Japan only?), Verbatim have announced they shall consider supplying disks for the foreseeable future. Particularly since their european sales topped 50 million in 2009.

50 million!! I can only assume an awful lot of legacy equipment is in use in eastern europe/former soviet states??

[DAVEHALL]

Originally Posted by HMV 1120

Well, every machine at college still has a FDD, even if I seem to be the only person using them (along with a few staff). Still, for carrying coursework and essays around they're ideal. The home machine had a usb stick, but the usb ports are at floor level. Predictably it got stood on. So, with 80+ blank discs here (about £15) I'm doing my best to use 'em!

As an aside, there's always a handful of emails doing the rounds each week along the lines of "Lost:USB stick : contains ALL my coursework and urgent essay etc". I've yet to lose a floppy...

Little trick for college floppies is to stick your name in the label when formatting and some distinctive label on the outside .

Have found that some floppies can get a bit stroppy when not used for a while - unfortunately best program I've ever found to get them back up was Norton 4.5 ,which don't like DOS higher than 6.2 .It did work after a fashion on Win95, but nothing like as well as on the older Dos .

[threeseven]

We had a Siemens telex machine in the family business which had a 5-1/4" floppy drive. Superb machine that was, build quality beyond belief ! We stopped using it when fax came along but I just couldn't bring myself to scrap it so I kept it and still have it now !
Now that epitomises a hoarder !

[russell_w_b]

Originally Posted by brenellic2000

Still can't beat a 5-1/4" floppy for survivability!

Bit modern, aren't they? We still use 8" floppies for our sender scheduling and programming system!

[brenellic2000]

Ah yes, 8" floppies - those where the days! Never did manage to get stereo out of it on my wind up gramophone - possibly should have used a pig's bristle rather than a damson tree thorn!

The only problem with floppies is the manically obsessed operating system and software engineers! We designed a 200,000sq office block on Ormus-Cad in the early 1980s (286 AT) and got it all one 5-1/4" floppy. The AutoCad DXF file on Windows 2 (yeuk!) needed 3 x 3-1/2" floppies. Same info and drawing, but full of bloatware c**p. Progress, eh?!

Barry

[russell_w_b]

Originally Posted by brenellic2000

Progress, eh?!

Barry

Progress indeed... We run ours with a 'user-belligerent' control system based around card-mounted ZEUS Z80 processors and memory stores. It works, is robust, and it doesn't crash. It was designed for a purpose (and we even have 'Space Invaders' disc somewhere!).

If it ain't broke...