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The last person standing in the floppy disk business

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Re: The last person standing in the floppy disk business

#81

Post by doomlaser »

ido wrote: post #61
doomlaser wrote: post #4

When I was a kid in 1998, the newly returned Steve Jobs introduced the original iMac from Apple, the first Mac without a floppy disk drive. This seemed like a monumental shift to me at the time, and me and my friends had just started to write our own freeware and shareware video games for the platform. I named our software company SloppyDisk Software. We stuck to that brand for around 10 years, releasing games like S…

At least of the 3 examples on that webpage it seems like you made remakes of existing simple games (tetris, sokoban, pong) - did you try making new designs of your own and if not, why not?

Sure. In 2007 I started up a new label at http://doomlaser.com. Made a bunch of indie stuff as that scene was really starting to bloom. Helped build some big franchises like Tap Tap Revenge, the iOS game for The Hunger Games, alongside irreverent stuff like https://kotaku.com/ultimate-shovelware-shit-game-5032364, and personal stuff like https://doomlaser.itch.io/standardbits (a game named after the Mac's low-level graphics blitter). Still working in games to this day.

Re: The last person standing in the floppy disk business

#83

Post by Swizec »

blantonl wrote: post #63

You haven't lived until you installed an operating system from 38 floppy disks. Slackware and OS/2 for example My lord those were fun days. Especially fun when you got to OS/2 Disk 21 and it died, or Slackware Xwindows Floppy 4 and you started hearing that disk drive kurchunking and you just knew you were dead in the water.

My friend got Settlers 2 on CD for his birthday. My computer didn’t have a CD drive.

Solution? Copy the installed game from his computer onto 30 floppy disks. Carefully reconstruct the installation on my computer.

It worked.

Re: The last person standing in the floppy disk business

#84

Post by rcarmo »

blantonl wrote: post #63

You haven't lived until you installed an operating system from 38 floppy disks. Slackware and OS/2 for example My lord those were fun days. Especially fun when you got to OS/2 Disk 21 and it died, or Slackware Xwindows Floppy 4 and you started hearing that disk drive kurchunking and you just knew you were dead in the water.

Slackware yes, OS/2 Warp I had the good fortune to only get on CD.

But those Mac System 6 disks…

Re: The last person standing in the floppy disk business

#85

Post by AshamedCaptain »

tgv wrote: post #62
roelschroeven wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Michelangelo and similar viruses only activate when you boot from the disk it's on. Insert a disk with Michelangelo in a running system, then format the disk (make sure you overwrite the boot sector), all OK. The operating systems of the time didn't have any autoplay functionality that could be exploited by viruses. I guess in theory viruses could have exploited things like buffer overflows in the OS code that reads…

Autoplay is as at least as old as Windows 3.1. A file called "autoexec.bat" would be executed on mounting, IIRC (not a Windows-person myself).

Not at all. Autoplay is new to the win 95 shell. And the idea of "mounting" is absolutely alien to a DOS system which can't even tell when a disk is inserted or not on a device.

DOS' shell would run autoexec.bat when booting but only the one from the boot volume.

Re: The last person standing in the floppy disk business

#86

Post by Tijdreiziger »

nine_k wrote: post #14
blamarvt wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And nothing makes your heart sink faster than the rhythmic sound of trying over and over to read the same bad disk.

The wisdom of 1990s was that if you have one copy of data on your disk, you may as well have zero copies. It became more pronounced in late 1990s when disks became more ubiquitous and the race for the lower price likely made them less reliable. After that the idea of backing things up, no matter where they are recorded initially, feels very natural.

That's still the wisdom.

The 3-2-1 backup rule: keep at least 3 copies of your data on at least 2 storage media, and keep at least 1 copy offsite.

Re: The last person standing in the floppy disk business

#87

Post by JohnTHaller »

blamarvt wrote: post #10
causi wrote: post #5

Nothing in modern computing compares to the audible and kinesthetic satisfaction of the ka-chunk of a 3.5 inch floppy being inserted into a drive.

And nothing makes your heart sink faster than the rhythmic sound of trying over and over to read the same bad disk.

Especially post-pandemic when most of the stuff in the theater is dead and there's only a single backup of the lighting board programming on a 3.5" floppy with a broken dust protector. Manually spinning it and blowing the dust out brought it back enough to save it after our first improv jam that took place with fluorescents on for the first 15 minutes while I manually programmed a single wash on a dimmer.

Re: The last person standing in the floppy disk business

#88

Post by Animats »

A few years ago, the last man standing in the punched paper tape business, "westnc.com", finally gave it up. There were still some numerically controlled machine tools running off paper tape. In 2019, NSA punched a crypto key into paper tape for the last time. As far as I can tell, nobody in the US still sells punched paper tape.

Although if you really need it, you could get it made. I restore old Teletype machines, including the kind that printed on 5/16" paper tape. I had a thousand rolls of such tape made up by a company in China, that being the minimum order, and I still sell some now and then to Teletype collectors.

Re: The last person standing in the floppy disk business

#89

Post by gibspaulding »

tjr wrote: post #29
NoGravitas wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember everyone thought it was crazy for the iMac to not have a floppy drive. But also that there were a lot of Bondi blue USB floppy drives around for the next few years.

https://www.gocomics.com/foxtrot/1998/10/21

I love that the top comment on this (from 9 years ago) is complaining about the new macbook air not having a CD drive.

Re: The last person standing in the floppy disk business

#90

Post by brunoTbear »

NotYourLawyer wrote: post #76

From the first sentence of TFA: > Tom Persky is the self-proclaimed “last man standing in the floppy disk business.” Why editorialize they HN title? He’s a guy! And “last man standing” is a set phrase. “Last person standing” is not.

Editorialization serves a valuable role of making writing better. IMO, language that is more inclusive is better than language that is less inclusive. Keeping needlessly gendered phrases around simply because they're a "set phrase" doesn't serve any compelling interest.

Language evolves. You can fight the ocean with a rake, or you can be supportive of changes that make language better for your friends and neighbors.

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