Jul -- Computers and Technology: Sony to stop producing floppies

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Posted on 04-28-10 11:06:40 AM

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I say.....

Good.

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Posted on 04-28-10 11:44:46 AM

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It's about time.

I actually bought some Sony floppies last year for personal use - I guess they're the last floppies I'll ever buy.

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Posted on 04-28-10 11:57:58 AM

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Originally posted by Hiryuu
Course, I'm sure someone else will manufacture them but Sony has made the decision to pull the plug for themselves.

I'm sure you can satisfy your desires for kapoing effects by utilizing NES Zappers

Also, uh, do recent computers even come standard with floppies any more? I almost never see them and they tend to just sit there unused on most modern devices.

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Posted on 04-28-10 12:04:24 PM

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Most motherboards today don't have floppy connectors on the boards. Or IDE for that matter.

And even some of the newer boards like the EVGA Classified lack -PCI- slots. That's right. Nothing but 7 PCI-e slots.

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Posted on 04-28-10 01:08:39 PM (last edited by Terra at 04-28-10 10:08 AM)

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I haven't used a floppy in years. Last time I used them often was to transfer data between home and scxhool computers in high school.

I remember back in 2006 I thought I might need a floppy for something, and I had no blank ones. They only sold them in packs of 50. Who needs 50 floppies?

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Posted on 04-28-10 01:17:23 PM

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I still use them at the office but that's because we build up DOS computers sometimes for customers looking to get certain machines refurbed in the field from the mid-80s/90s. Last one I built up was a DOS/XP Hybrid that ran at 233MHz w/ 256MB of RAM. Needless to say I had to make sure all the performance options were set right there.

But people still rely on them as a means of backup for old, old, OLD systems. We still stock floppies and use them often enough to send out at least DOS/IDE hard drives.

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Posted on 04-28-10 01:42:47 PM

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I haven't used a machine with a floppy drive for ten years. Literally.

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Posted on 04-28-10 03:47:39 PM

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Last time I used them frequently was also in high school, until I got a flash drive partway through. The absolute last time was probably when I had to do a BIOS update on a computer that could only do it from floppy. this was maybe 2-3 years ago. There's just no benefit anymore outside of special applications like old computers and stuff.

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Posted on 04-28-10 04:32:42 PM

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Supakitsune

I'm surprised they were even still making them for this long.
But then again, there's always someone out there who does need this kind of thing.
It's sort of like with Polaroid camera film.

As for myself...
My mom had to pay extra to have a floppy drive put into our computer when we ordered it in 2004.
In 2008, I actually took the drive out myself and discarded it, as it was no longer necessary.
We still use floppy disks in my A+ class occasionally.
That's only because ~~my teacher's a nutjob~~we work with some older PCs, though.

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Posted on 04-28-10 04:59:19 PM (last edited by Orlandu at 04-28-10 02:00 PM)

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	I had seem them as the 50 packs like derp Terra said, and I found a few old ones a while back going through my junk boxes. I can't remember the last time I actually used one, must have been 7-8 years ago in high school I remember having to bring a project home to work on it. 1.44mb is no where near enough space for anything besides text and basic images. No love lost from them going the way of extinction. ____________________

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Posted on 04-28-10 06:04:40 PM

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Metal_Man88's Post

I have a 50-pack, sealed, filled with 5-inch floppies.

I'll be ready to wait out this floppy apocalypse. *Clutches useless box of floppies*

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Posted on 04-28-10 06:07:45 PM

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Oh wow, five and a quarter inch.

I could imitate my old drive on my 286 perfectly after hearing it for so long as a kid. Just the same note over again with different variations of tenuto or staccato.

I say that and then we have cases such as this:

<object width="480" height="385"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/X4SCSGRVAQE&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

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Posted on 04-28-10 06:11:42 PM

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I still use floppies sometimes, namely to move files between multiple computers (the two Performa 575s, the HP Pavilion, and even the Mac SE/30)...

I suppose my flash drive could work on the HP Pavilion, but it only has 2 USB 1.1 ports (sadly, no USB 2.0... but I could add a PCI card for it if desired. =P)

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Posted on 04-28-10 06:37:20 PM

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Yeah, Schala, but you use old computers from when floppies were still popular a lot

My parents wanted a USB floppy drive for their first non-floppy-equipped machine (an HP laptop in 2003), because their digital camera used floppies. My digital camera (bought in 2008) can hook up directly to a computer via USB.

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Posted on 04-28-10 07:48:09 PM

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My old computer has a floppy, I used it about 20 times in five years, that was for some really old program which liked to save on floopies. Aside from this, older machines and/or a Windows XP install disk without SATA drivers on them. You may need them by default, there might be one occasion to use one, as these things literally cost nothing - but any friend should have one if needed for once. Borrow it, pop that bastard in, install your OS, return the drive.
Aside from vastly increased storage and file sizes floppy disks were unreliable at times. Think about backing up some really important documents - then the disk is probably damaged and gone. Personally didn't have too much trouble in those rare occasions I used them, always double-checked if those data were _really_ on that disk. On extremely important data even used a second floppy (aside the local hard disk copy in the homecomputer era, if there was enough space back then).

You also may ask why there are still CD-only writers available, while I think that many people who will primarily burn DVDs, if not using an audio CD for older machines or just to make it compatible to any CD player.
There are a lot of computers which are really old for today's standards, but still work flawlessy. And if you can even get some essential parts it might be good. Although I think it even might be possible to install a DVD drive in Windows 98 SE (even with little resources I'd install a "shrinked" Win 2000 on that machine, either a custom install disc or removing/disabling unused files and services).

I just hope the prices from the remaining manufacturers won't rise too much, as like with IDE HDDs. The prices for those are ridicously high, compared to any SATA hard disk. And I don't think IDE is "dead", though, and will not vanish as fast, when even floppy disks are around today.

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Posted on 04-28-10 08:59:48 PM

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#52

I have no shortage of floppies, even if I can't get any new ones

But I don't really use them anymore either, except for looking back at old stuff or copying files to/from a computer without network access ...

I still don't have a flash drive or external hard disk, I tend to use network shares or online storage for that

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Posted on 04-28-10 09:04:28 PM

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I have not used a floppy since 2003, its been so long and since then Ihaven't purchased any new floppies, though they have stayed around in little convenient shops and I believe they are still beling sold in packs of 10's here.

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Posted on 04-29-10 09:31:31 AM

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I saw an old Windows 98 machine with a like, 300Mhz P2 or something with a DVD drive. It had to have a completely separate PCI card just for decoding the MPEG2 video. :p I think the DVD drive even connected to the computer through that card, which was also connected to the video card, so I figure the CPU didn't ever see any relevant video data at all, just straight to the decoder card and out to the videocard to an overlay.

I figure the OS was able to read from the drive, too... actually I think I've used MSCDEX with a DVD in DOS and had it work.

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Posted on 04-29-10 09:37:36 AM

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04-29-10 04:37:36 AM
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Well Sony will always be able to give me a floppy. *ba-dum-tsshh*

Last I checked a local department store still has an unsold Interact floppy holder. Being an Interact product though, I'll be surprised if it hasn't spontaneously combusted by now.

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