"Add to cart" does nothing. Wonder if they actually sell floppies, or just shred them to keep pushing us towards modern technology.
I think they brag about being the only seller of floppies and it’s been a few years at least?
Recycle – Floppydisks
41–50 of 52 posts
Re: Recycle – Floppydisks
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
What band is that? Also how do they do that? Just heavily compressed mp3?
Here's an example - https://remute.bandcamp.com/merch/limited-expansion-pack-35-... I'd guess they use .mod files - instruments and tracks, rather than digitized audio.
1.44Mb should be enough even for a compressed but still decent quality MP3(~128kb) or AAC(~112kb) short track (1:30+, I think), then you can also reduce audio quality and gain more time based on music styles (lo-fi, etc).
Re: Recycle – Floppydisks
#43Re: Recycle – Floppydisks
#44In twenty years time, will there be a secondary market in random USB sticks?
I have a vast quantity of random USB sticks from clearing out my father's house, keeping them just in case something needed, nothing was. Rather than take the effort to dispose of them, I am thinking of holding on to them for the retro scene of 2050.
Re: Recycle – Floppydisks
#45Looking through their website, it seems they are not recycling them in the usual sense of the word, but reusing them. That is, they reformat and resell them at a discount (66%) that of new ones. Which is fine, I guess, if they're just laying around your house, but it's not like they're making new things with the materials which is what the word recycling usually implies.
"Reuse" ranks higher than "recycle" in terms of best things to do with an item, if it's reasonable to do so.
Re: Recycle – Floppydisks
#46Relatedly, I was recently digging through the attic at my family’s home and came across a 3.5" disk containing a bunch of QBASIC programs I’d written in the early ’90s. Despite sitting for decades in a non–climate-controlled attic, it loaded up just fine when I plugged it into a USB floppy drive. Honestly, looking back at code from 30+ years ago felt more like an archaeology expedition. Also how many other kids also…
A while ago I learned that very early versions of 3.5" floppies didn't have the auto shutter mechanism and you had to open and close the shutter manually. (I think that was probably just used on some Japanese Sony machines.)
Interesting! I tried to find a demonstration of the manual shutter. This is the closest thing I’ve been able to find. Apparently, it was one of the earliest Sony models to feature a semi-automatic shutter.
Re: Recycle – Floppydisks
#47In twenty years time, will there be a secondary market in random USB sticks? I have a vast quantity of random USB sticks from clearing out my father's house, keeping them just in case something needed, nothing was. Rather than take the effort to dispose of them, I am thinking of holding on to them for the retro scene of 2050.
It's hard to say.
From a vintage computing perspective, possibly. The only question is whether they will work. Oddly, I have found USB sticks to be less reliable than floppy disks. (Odd because I would think that semi-conductor memory would last longer than a ferrous coating glued to a plastic substrate that is dragged along both the read/write head and the shell and is known to be susceptible to mould.)
Other uses, I just don't know. Floppy disks have a well defined appearance that means they are iconic. (Sometimes literally so!) USB sticks vary so much in size and appearance that it will be difficult to earn the iconic status. Floppies also have more to work with when it comes down to arts projects.
Re: Recycle – Floppydisks
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dialup systems typically spent most of their time offline. If you wanted to connect to one over IP you'd need some way to get it to dial back up to the ISP, and then some way to get the new address it'd ended up on.
Yup, and phoning a number wouldn't incur charges unless the other side picked up. ringconnectd never answered a call, but rather listened for a ring pattern that you could specify. So what I'd typically do is go to a payphone, dial my line at home, let it ring twice, hang up, get my money back, dial again letting it ring twice again, hang up, get my money back again, then go to the computer lab to wait. My system at…
As someone who barely grew up in the tail-end of dial-up, reading stories like this blow my mind. It's insane how far we've come in such a short time
Re: Recycle – Floppydisks
#49I had a huge stack of ancient mixed floppies!
Re: Recycle – Floppydisks
#50My son told be today that he wants to buy a floppy disk drive because one of the bands he likes started releasing singles on 3.5" floppies. What a time to be alive.
What band is that? Also how do they do that? Just heavily compressed mp3?
I'm pretty sure this is the one he wants:
https://supercassetteband.bandcamp.com/merch/ouroboros-flopp...