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The floppy disk just won’t die

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Re: The floppy disk just won’t die

#141

Post by squigg »

crtasm wrote: post #50
squigg wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they are releasing on floppy, then the quality can't be up to much - that's going to be a pretty low bitrate MP3 to fit in that space!

Sometimes they'll be modtracker files (a handful of short samples + playback information) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Module_file

Ah good point. Hadn't considered mods as a distro mechanism. I still have all the mods I made in the late 80s/90s - rendered them and uploaded to Soundcloud for the world to enjoy / laugh at ... a very resilient format!

Re: The floppy disk just won’t die

#142

Post by jaclaz »

ianburrell wrote: post #83
wrycoder wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I liked the old floppies. They were great for backing up personal data. They were easy to write on and store in special trays. I still haven’t discovered a convenient way to handle flash drives. They are to small to write on, and so I have a pile of them tossed in a box, and I have to search through them to find the right one. Anyone have a good way?

The idea I just had would be write a number on them. Should be space for two or three digits. Then keep table with contents for each number. Edit: I guess I haven’t used USB drive in while cause they don’t have place to write. Would have put label sticker on them, or printed label from machine.

JFYI, something like that did exist (but unfortunately didn't have success):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33957246

Re: The floppy disk just won’t die

#143

Post by jaclaz »

the_third_wave wrote: post #121
Tor3 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back when we started to use CDs for backups I was horrified when I found that in general those CDs started to become unreadable after only a year in storage. We never had any problems with original CDs (say, the tons of CDs that came with an SGI computer), but the consumer-type writable ones didn't last at all. I think the technology got better after some years, but I still wouldn't trust a writable CD or DVD to last…

Just like floppies got their bad reputation from the throw-away disks and drives which hit the market in the latter days of their era the same is true for writeable CDs and DVDs. I have tons of older Kodak Gold CD-Rs which are still perfectly readable after ~30 years. I bought these back then to use as archive medium - back when 650 MB still seemed like quite a lot of data - and can only conclude I made the right cho…

Yep, circa 1995 a "normal" hard disk was 300 to 500 MB, a whole disk image would fit on a CD, we had an external CDRW drive (yes, parallel interface), soon after 1 GB to 2.1 GB become common, and I remember making multiple "data" partitions around 650 MB in size because contents of one such partition would surely fit on a backup CD.

The CD's (media) in those times were surely more durable, but also the actual drives were much more robust.

I still have somewhere a (SCSI) CDRW drive using one of those "caddies" that can read at 1x that could sometimes read old CD's that more modern drives failed at (used to, it's a lot of time I don't use it).

Re: The floppy disk just won’t die

#144

Post by shakow »

patates wrote: post #130
shakow wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised this was your experience, because I lost many more USB thumbdrives (especially in the early 2000's) than I lost floppies.

You mean lost, as in they got misplaced, right? I used to transfer files a lot with usb sticks and had one fail only once.

No, I mean lost as in “broke down”.

I may be a statistical anomaly, but although modern USB sticks are pretty reliable, I experienced an awful track record w.r.t. the ones from the 2000's-2010's.

Re: The floppy disk just won’t die

#145

Post by jaclaz »

Tor3 wrote: post #106
TonyTrapp wrote: post #11

> Following the rodeo incident, Necaise decided to finally upgrade, but not to an entirely new machine—just to a floppy-to-USB emulator. These devices cost around $275 each... That's odd. Gotek and similar emulators should be available for a tenth of that price. There are several variations though, so it smells to me like someone is reselling a Gotek "guaranteed to work" with a specific type of machine with a large m…

Odd indeed. As far as I know the Gotek was invented exactly for use by embroidery machines, and the ads are everywhere. I tried entering "embroidery floppy emulator" into Google and an Amazon link for a $38 Gotek came up first (and, as we know, we can get it cheaper than that). But of course a few lines below there's a "floppyusbemulator.com" page with a $250 "Nalbantov" drive (which are sold for $175 elsewhere, and…

I can confirm, the first time I saw one of them (many years ago, I believe probably 15 years ago, maybe more) it was in the workshop of someone who provided assistance/repair to sewing machines (and embroidery machines), from what I can remember at the time floppies and floppy drives were still in use and it was intended as an upgrade as it had less issues with dust and was more convenient to have many (up to 100) "floppy" images available.

Besides the (now common) Gotek, there are every kind of emulators/replacements for industrial machines, like, besides embroidery, CNC's, some early robots, etc., here is a site dedicated to them:

https://embeddedsw.net/EMUFDD_Floppy_Hardware_Emulator_Home....

Re: The floppy disk just won’t die

#146

Post by Diomedea »

wrycoder wrote: post #76
causi wrote: post #5

There is nothing in the modern hardware ecosystem quite as satisfying as the feeling and sound of a 3.5 inch floppy ka-chunking into a floppy drive. Sure, everything being silent magic these days is nice, but I never felt so in touch with a computer as I did as a child dragging files off a floppy drive and hearing the drive start to buzz and hum. It was like being able to touch the data itself.

I liked the old floppies. They were great for backing up personal data. They were easy to write on and store in special trays. I still haven’t discovered a convenient way to handle flash drives. They are to small to write on, and so I have a pile of them tossed in a box, and I have to search through them to find the right one. Anyone have a good way?

I put each one in a tiny (2" x 3.75") reclosable plastic bag, and include a slip of paper with the details written on it. These bags are sold for use by people who do beading.

I keep the bagged flash drives in a small cardboard box.

Re: The floppy disk just won’t die

#147

Post by kloch »

> Davit Niazashvili, a maintenance manager at Geosky, a cargo airline based in Tbilisi, Georgia, still uses floppy disks to apply critical updates to two 36-year-old 747-200s, which were originally delivered to British Airways in 1987:

GeoSky frequently lets youtubers film in the cockpit of their 747-200's. If you are a fan of the classic 747 steam gauge cockpits, these videos are priceless. Some examples:

Classic Boeing 747-200 Clock Shop! Geo Sky Takeoff from Tbilisi, Georgia, to Frankfurt! https://youtu.be/JSKYoqVPtWw?t=88

BOEING 747-200 Takeoff | Less than 10 B747 Classic still flying now! https://youtu.be/O8AA_tkY49g?t=503

Re: The floppy disk just won’t die

#148

Post by kloch »

bombolo wrote: post #96
kitsunesoba wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly, hard drive seeking noise used to feel something like the heartbeat of the computer. When it went silent and all you heard was fans you knew something was up and a force reboot was likely in your near future. I don't really miss it all that much though, mainly because HD noise could range anywhere from barely audible clicks and whirrs all the way up to an angry animal of some sort, with most drives leaning…

You think hard drives were loud? My dad had a dot matrix printer.

Thanks, now I feel really old.

Seriously though, until very recently you could hear dot matrix printers at most airline gates. They used them to print out manifests to hand to the crew right before the plane departs.

Re: The floppy disk just won’t die

#149

Post by charlesrocket »

causi wrote: post #5

There is nothing in the modern hardware ecosystem quite as satisfying as the feeling and sound of a 3.5 inch floppy ka-chunking into a floppy drive. Sure, everything being silent magic these days is nice, but I never felt so in touch with a computer as I did as a child dragging files off a floppy drive and hearing the drive start to buzz and hum. It was like being able to touch the data itself.

MO is not really modern, but the sound is great.

Re: The floppy disk just won’t die

#150

Post by BeFlatXIII »

pjot wrote: post #72
causi wrote: post #5

There is nothing in the modern hardware ecosystem quite as satisfying as the feeling and sound of a 3.5 inch floppy ka-chunking into a floppy drive. Sure, everything being silent magic these days is nice, but I never felt so in touch with a computer as I did as a child dragging files off a floppy drive and hearing the drive start to buzz and hum. It was like being able to touch the data itself.

The speakers buzzing just before getting a SMS text is the closest I’ve gotten to predicting the future.

It was such a consistent swing pattern, too.
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