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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

#101

Post by laumars »

asciimov wrote: post #30

I miss the physicality of floppy disks. Picking up a caddy of disks, thumbing through reading the labels, sliding them into the drive and hearing the motor whirr. Nowadays, my caddy has been replaced with a small plastic bag full of chips and thumbdrives. Even though my small bag can easily hold millions of times more data, the little chips aren't a joy to use. None of them have labels telling their contents. All of…

My memory of floppy disks was having to write multiple copies of the same files across different disks because odds are one of them would fail. It was particularly painful if you had to zip any files up as odds are you’d end up with a failed CRC.

I was a relatively early adopter of CD writers because I was sick of floppy disks failing.

I’ve also got a stack of 3” floppies (like what was used for the Amstrad CPC and Nintendo Famicom) that don’t work too.

Re: The last person standing in the floppy disk business

#102

Post by drewzero1 »

gildas wrote: post #41
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.

At that moment, I took the knife next to the computer to insert gently the blade into the drive above the diskette. It worked most of the time :p.

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who routinely stabbed my computer! I used to keep a butter knife by my iMac to help eject CDs. I had the first slot-loading model and the rubber eject rollers they used seemed to lose their grip after a while.

Re: The last person standing in the floppy disk business

#103

Post by rawoke083600 »

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.

That 'stutter-of-failure' :D

Re: The last person standing in the floppy disk business

#104

Post by incanus77 »

Great interview; really enjoyed this.

In the late 80s / early 90s, I had a home computer with 5.25” floppies. I remember at the mall around the holidays, Radio Shack would run a holiday animation on their Tandy computers to show them off. One in particular sticks out to me — an animation of a 3.5” “modern” floppy going into a shirt pocket and then an attempt at a 5.25” which resulted in a torn pocket, showing off the superior portability of the new, smaller disks. Does anyone else remember this?

Re: The last person standing in the floppy disk business

#106

Post by samatman »

brunoTbear wrote: post #90
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.

There is nothing generic in the sentence "last man standing". It's referring to one person, who is, in this case, a man.

The argument, which at least makes sense, is that a "Chairman", even if he's male, should be a "Chairperson" because the office is not male, and therefore the title shouldn't be gendered.

That just doesn't apply here. "A Chairperson" makes sense, "a last man standing" doesn't.

"Last person standing" is also something you could say, but the title didn't, and there is no cause to 'correct' it, because it isn't wrong.

Re: The last person standing in the floppy disk business

#107

Post by mikehotel »

asciimov wrote: post #30

I miss the physicality of floppy disks. Picking up a caddy of disks, thumbing through reading the labels, sliding them into the drive and hearing the motor whirr. Nowadays, my caddy has been replaced with a small plastic bag full of chips and thumbdrives. Even though my small bag can easily hold millions of times more data, the little chips aren't a joy to use. None of them have labels telling their contents. All of…

You might be interested in this floppy disk upgrade using sd cards.

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=8IZcP0oP0OU

Re: The last person standing in the floppy disk business

#108

Post by wrycoder »

koala_man wrote: post #49
seanc wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true! Floppies had viruses too. Even back in the 80's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo_(computer_virus)

I think parent refers to the fact that if you insert a floppy disk and reformat it without running anything on it, it's safe. This is not true for USB drives, as USB controllers can be programmed to re-insert a virus or fry the system at any time in the future.

Not true for floppies, either. To reformat the boot sector, include the /S switch.

FORMAT /S

Re: The last person standing in the floppy disk business

#109

Post by Noumenon72 »

brunoTbear wrote: post #90
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.

I have no problem with calling a waitress a server or whatever, but when I clicked on this title I did spend some time thinking about the lost euphoniousness and wondering whether there is a special masculine quality to "last man standing". It sounds like it might come from some knockdown game that women would not play. Google says boxing.

Re: The last person standing in the floppy disk business

#110

Post by rawoke083600 »

What was also funny was "floppy grammar" (at least in my time and locale)

Whenever you gave someone x amount of floppies to copy something for you (prob a game)... the usual grammar/conversation was "you can just copy over it" yet no such thing exists, you can't in 999/1000 cases "copy-over something" you first have to delete/format it then copy.

Always thought it was 'funny/weird' :)

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