Re: Who still uses floppies these days?

[ak621@chebucto.ns.ca (Richard Bonner)]

Bible John wrote:
> Presently I work in a printing shop.  Every now and then a customer will 
> drop by a business card, letterhead, or whatever on a floppy disk.  This is 
> not often (CD and USB flash rule) but I most definately get more floppies 
> than zips. In the 3 months I've been working there I have received probably 
> no more than 10 floppies, and not a single Zip disk.

***   I'd give a floppy too because the file is small and I don't mind
giving out a 50-cent floppy as compared to a USB memory stick.  (-:


> Then I am wondering who is still using floppies these days?  I visit a
> 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 use them constantly. People aren't buying them because there are
zillions of them around and people just recycle them. I get boxes of them
from all my bloatware friends because they cannot fit stuff on floppy
discs anymore. I just laugh at them and their folly. What's next? -
Pentium 15s running at 1 terahertz just to type a letter?


> On my old PC laptop I have no choice but to use floppies, since it cannot 
> use any USB flash drive.  

***   That is why I bought a laptop with a floppy, CD-ROM, USB, and serial
and parallel ports. I wasn't forced to upgrade all my hardware and then
having to deal with brain-dead Windoze hardware and the lack of DOS
drivers.

   I love walking into computer stores and having the salesperson try to
sell me some useless Windoze product. "Does it run under DOS", I
frequently ask. When he says "no", I laugh and say" "You should cater
to all your actual customers instead only to the brainwashed public. Not
everyone is sucked into using Windoze." 

   They counter with "Oh, yeah, with DOS, how does one do...". I set up
the laptop and proceed to give them a lesson in what a real operating
system can do, and at a fraction of the CPU speed, to boot. I can't wait
till I get a wireless Internet card for it.  (-:  (*)


> So when I want a document to travel from my old 
> laptop, to ibook, and then to XP desktop, it must be on a floppy.  So for 
> that reason, I bought a USB drive for my ibook. Sure Wifi is cute, but then 
> again a hub would cost more than a floppy drive, and besides some people in 
> some locations do not have broadband Internet.  This is not my case, as I'd 
> rather not surf tthe Internet 24/7, which would be what would happen if I 
> installed a Wifi network.

***   All have their uses. I don't use floppies to transfer unless it
can all fit on one floppy. If it's more than one, I usually use my USB
flash drive. However, my DX4-100 does not have USB, so it's floppies all
the way for it. Fortunately, I don't need to transfer many files to & from
it that exceed 1.4 Mb.


> Here are the 10 reasons why floppies continue to rule!
> 1. Writeable and Rewriteable in seconds.

> 2. Highly compatible with millions of computers.

> 3. With no hole in the center, they make better coasters.

> 4. Very inexpensive.

> 5. Available in lots of colors.

> 6. Easy to label with custom information.

> 7. Duplicated in seconds not weeks.

> 8. Easy to recycle.

> 9. Content is a manageable size.

> 10. Great people like us still sell them!

***   You may add that security is easier because they can be bulk
erased. CDs can't. I'd never use CDs for daily backups. For archiving,
yes, but I want easily erasable discs for most purposes. My main complaint
is the slow speed (300 RPM) and their unreliability over time.


> So are you guys buying from this company?  I mean if I had the need I would, 
> but the 50 pack of floppies I bought a year ago still seems to be going 
> strong.  I have about 10 disks remaining, so I may need to buy another 50 
> pack soon here. I like the colors.
>
> John

***   So do I, although, coloured labels could be used for CDs, and I can
see someone coming out with coloured CDs, at least for the edge and label
side.

         Richard Bonner
http://www.chebucto.ca/~ak621/DOS/

(*) A friend of mine has a 486 laptop he bought for $5. $7 got him a
witeless card. He runs MS-DOS 6.2 and in areas with good conections,
he goes from bootup to "Google" screen in 16 seconds!

R.