Author Topic: Dell: It's Time Floppy Drives Go Way Of The Dodo  (Read 1193 times)

cahult

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Dell: It's Time Floppy Drives Go Way Of The Dodo
« on: 6 February 2003, 05:57 »
http://biz.yahoo.com/ibd/030205/tech_1.html

About time, Apple got rid of them 5 years ago! Who needs floppys today? Is there a floppy mafia which makes money on using these suckers?
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Siplus

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Dell: It's Time Floppy Drives Go Way Of The Dodo
« Reply #1 on: 6 February 2003, 06:32 »
my laptop doesn't have a floppy drive, and it's the first computer i own w/o one. i guess i don't really need it, but it's always nice to have for things like bootup disks...


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Stryker

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Dell: It's Time Floppy Drives Go Way Of The Dodo
« Reply #2 on: 6 February 2003, 06:38 »
quote:
Originally posted by cahult:
http://biz.yahoo.com/ibd/030205/tech_1.html

About time, Apple got rid of them 5 years ago! Who needs floppys today? Is there a floppy mafia which makes money on using these suckers?



I use them for testing my operating system, but maybe I'm an exception.

SpeeDFreaK

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Dell: It's Time Floppy Drives Go Way Of The Dodo
« Reply #3 on: 6 February 2003, 06:40 »
Meh. I still like it because it's erasable and quick for data transfer. But I have been going without one for a while now. So I say let the 1.44meg floppy go and bring back the LS-120s!
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Pissed_Macman

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Dell: It's Time Floppy Drives Go Way Of The Dodo
« Reply #4 on: 6 February 2003, 06:44 »
Hope this thread doesn't start another floppy war. I'm glad Dell's getting rid of them.

rtgwbmsr

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Dell: It's Time Floppy Drives Go Way Of The Dodo
« Reply #5 on: 6 February 2003, 07:39 »
I haven't put one in any system I've built within the last 2 years. A waste of space IMO. I didn't know they even put them in new computers!    

I actually own the first Mac not to come with a floppy - the PowerBook G3 Series ("Wallstreet") You could buy them, but they didn't come with the computer in any standard config.

Calum

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Dell: It's Time Floppy Drives Go Way Of The Dodo
« Reply #6 on: 6 February 2003, 14:36 »
I LOVE FLOPPIES! why should we be denied them? i think the current situation is fine as it is. floppies are cheap, so are floppy drives, nobody needs to use them if they don't want to, but i do. i use them for a shitload of stuff, and so does my girlfirend. and if floppy drives start going out of fashion, a lot of the point of floppies will be lost for us, since we won't be able to save to floppies on one machine and transfer to another because most computers won't have a floppy drive). I think this is very sad. floppy drives weren't harming anybody and some of us will be lost without them. what's the proposed alternative to them? as far as i know nothing is as cheap that will do as good a job, and certainly nothing is as standard as floppies.
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jtpenrod

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Dell: It's Time Floppy Drives Go Way Of The Dodo
« Reply #7 on: 6 February 2003, 15:12 »
It really doesn't surprise me that Dell is doing away with floppies.  :rolleyes:  You have to remember that these systems are made for Winderz lusers. It's a tremendous waste to have to burn a CD just to save a few MBs (or even 10s of MBs). (But how diligent are most Winderz lusers about doing back-ups in the first place?  :confused:  )

Then again, I'm running Linux. If I can't tar.gz something to fit on one floppy, I can always "split" them up into pieces that'll fit on a floppy, and later "cat" them back together again when I'm ready to reload the file(s). Betcha can't do that with XP!    
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Dell: It's Time Floppy Drives Go Way Of The Dodo
« Reply #8 on: 6 February 2003, 16:17 »
calum calum calum calum you just won't let go.

Master of Reality

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Dell: It's Time Floppy Drives Go Way Of The Dodo
« Reply #9 on: 6 February 2003, 17:20 »
I use floppies all the time. I use it to boot up OSes, boot into a windows computer with Toms root boot disk and format the drives. Of course this doesnt really affect me though, as i have several floppies drives in a box over there <-- including some 5 1/4 drives.
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preacher

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Dell: It's Time Floppy Drives Go Way Of The Dodo
« Reply #10 on: 6 February 2003, 17:21 »
quote:
Originally posted by cahult:
http://biz.yahoo.com/ibd/030205/tech_1.html

About time, Apple got rid of them 5 years ago! Who needs floppys today? Is there a floppy mafia which makes money on using these suckers?



Yeah Im gonna waste a 700mb CD so that I can store 10-40kb images. What a stupid idea. Not to mention the fact that CDRW isnt nearly as reliable as I would hope. Besides I have pc's that dont even have cd roms.
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Fett101

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Dell: It's Time Floppy Drives Go Way Of The Dodo
« Reply #11 on: 6 February 2003, 21:20 »
quote:
Originally posted by ThePreacher:


Yeah Im gonna waste a 700mb CD so that I can store 10-40kb images. What a stupid idea. Not to mention the fact that CDRW isnt nearly as reliable as I would hope. Besides I have pc's that dont even have cd roms.



I always just use the same CD over and over till it's full. Badda bing, badda boom.

Calum

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Dell: It's Time Floppy Drives Go Way Of The Dodo
« Reply #12 on: 6 February 2003, 21:57 »
great. a workaround. isn't that what windows is made of? what if a floppy works fine and there's no need for a workaround? floppies are not harming any of you and they are cheap as chips, so what's the fucking problem?
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Pantso

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Dell: It's Time Floppy Drives Go Way Of The Dodo
« Reply #13 on: 6 February 2003, 22:06 »
I can't say I miss floppies. As a matter of fact I never use them any more (since my iBook doesn't have one) and have copied their contents in Zip disks.

pkd_lives

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Dell: It's Time Floppy Drives Go Way Of The Dodo
« Reply #14 on: 6 February 2003, 22:23 »
Floppies are redundant and should have been fazed out years ago. I hate them, I can see no point in them. I can think of only one use for them, and that's as boot-up options for non-CDROM bootable Bios' (which already contain a floppy drive).

Saving small images on and transfering files to other computers. I can do this faster using an e-mail service. Spend $1 on a rewritable CD, not only is it cheaper, gives you more space, but it is better for the environment.

The Floppy disk is the single most unreliable storage system I have ever used.

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