Re: Who still uses floppies these days?

["Michael Paoli" <michael1cat@yahoo.com>]

Bible John wrote:
> Then I am wondering who is still using floppies these days?  I visit aa
> local retail store, and I've seen 10 large boxes of 100 floppies that just
> sit on the shelf. They've been there for months and people are not buying
> them.
> I did some research and discovered a company that specializes in floppies.
> http://www.floppydisk.com/floppy-disc.html
> I read this
> We process thousands of floppy discs each day...
> Who uses that many floppies?
> Here are the 10 reasons why floppies continue to rule!
> 1. Writeable and Rewriteable in seconds.
> 2. Highly compatible with millions of computers.
> 4. Very inexpensive.
> 5. Available in lots of colors.
> 6. Easy to label with custom information.
> 9. Content is a manageable size.
> 10. Great people like us still sell them!

11. easier handling than CDs/DVDs (less fragile, integrated container
    that's scratch and shock resistant and protects the media).
12. withstands much greater number of rewrites than CD-RW/DVD+-RW

I certainly still use them semi-frequently, for relatively
small/modest bits of data transfer/backup.

And in the (mostly) redundant categories:
o Much faster writes than CD-R[W]/DVD+-R[W] for small/modest amounts
  of data (2x USB floppy write speeds also speed that up a bit more).
o Available and inexpensive - though lowered production of new
  floppies seems to have driven up retail prices, good used floppies
  tend to be dirt cheap to free, and rather to quite available.  I
  tend to stock up when I find prices <~= $0.10 USD per 3.5" floppy
  (I got about a few hundred for $10.00 USD several years ago, and
  about another 25 to 50 for $0.25 USD within the last couple years).
  So ... I probably have enough floppies to cover my needs for quite
  a while to come (perhaps a lifetime).  I do a full overwrite
  formatting of the ones I pick up, and the vast majority of them
  (>~=97%) turn out to be perfectly good floppies, passing all
  verification checks fine.  "Of course" this price/supply situation,
  and their still relatively wide support, won't last forever (e.g. on
  http://www.floppydisk.com/buy.htm note that the LOW DENSITY DS/DD
  diskettes are *more* expensive than the HIGH DENSITY DS/HD
  diskettes).
o Various colors and such are handy - for a small set of
  (semi-)frequently used floppies, one can remember what's generally
  on what, without even bothering to (re)label the diskettes.

I probably also still have several hundred 5.25" floppies, but I use
those relatively rarely these days.  I have some 8" floppies, but
alas, I've never had, and don't yet have an 8" floppy drive, ... so I
don't have too much use for those ... at least yet.