Many 5"1/4 drives were gray like that, though yours is a bit yellowed.

Of course games came in that format as there was no other option back then. Even windows 3.1 has a 3"1/4 version.

However just like 3.5" disks, there are many standards of floppy disks .

First one and oldest is the single sided double density disk. Not very common as it was quickly replaced by
The double sided double density disk. Very common standard.
And finally there's the double sided high density disk that's bigger and was used quite a lot as well

These drives were widespread from the 80's to the early 90's, so that's probably original.

- I have never seen 5.25" diskettes in my life. Born in 1985. 😊
- Don't even know if any games were ever sold as 5.25" format ?

- I was born sooner and i definitely remember using 5.25'' diskettes as the primary (and only) type of removable media in the early 90s. Not everyone had the latest and greatest PC, and with 1.2MB high density disks available you wouldn't be missing out on much compared to 3.5''
- They were definitely sold in that format, not to mention all the pirated stuff that was being swapped around. Many of the "original boxed games" often had both formats in the box.

"Not everyone had the latest and greatest PC"
I was born in 1985. So early years pre1994 of course went by playing NES 😀
I used first time some Olivetti computers:386/486 when in school 1991-1993 when 5-7y.o.
Not until when I was 9-10y.o we got our first PC 1995-96:
IBM Aptiva: Cyrix 6x86.
- Windows 95.
- Hyperman, Cyberia, Undersea adventures, Kindergarten Magic Theater... CD-roms. 😊
- O/S 2 Warp free try-out version.

So did stores still sell these 5.25" games as new in 1991 ?
- In Northern Europe I believe no is the answer but I can be wrong.
If I remember correctly 1.44MB ​3.5"-disks were pretty much everywhere in early 1990s and I never ever saw bigger 5.25" disks.

Win95 upgrade version (from 3.1) was available on 5.25" discs.
Sound Blasters often came with both 5.25" and 3.5" driver/install discs

So you two are saying 5.25" floppies were very common and stores sold plenty of new 5.25" games in 1991 ? Ok I have missed those disks completely.

Though in Estonia 2006 a large store still sold new and sealed Duke Nukem 3D.

Maybe not, here in eastern europe almost nobody had even seen a legitimate copy of a game at the time and "game stores" didn't exist. But if you look up pictures of shareware titles like Jill of the Jungle you'll see many of them came in both formats. I'm sure a lot of boring business software came on them too.

Were 5.25" floppy games kind of U.S.A only thing ?
Our stores sold only 3.5" demos and sharewares Euro Power Pack.
EURO POWER PACK games list ?

user33331 wrote:

Were 5.25" floppy games kind of U.S.A only thing ?

No, of course not. Here in Greece a PC magazine was offering a free 5 1/4" disk until late 1993, when it switched to 3.5"

Afaik it was common in the early 90s in Germany for game boxes to contain game disks in both 3,5" and 5,25".

Even my oldest game F-19 Stealth Fighter(full version+large box) is in 3.5" format.
I have no memory about 5.25".
Oh well I have about 50-80pcs 3.5" diskettes but 0pcs(zero) 5.25" diskettes. 😢

Anyone know when 5.25" diskettes disappeared completely off the market ?
- I remember 3.5" disappeared around about 1996-97...
- I remember CDs disappeared around about 2005-06...
My last CD game if I remember is Need for Speed: Underground 2, 2004.

user33331 wrote:

- I remember 3.5" disappeared around about 1996-97...

No they didn't. What do you think people transported files on? USB keys and writable CDRs?

user33331 wrote:

- I remember CDs disappeared around about 2005-06...

This is just starting to sound like a troll thread...

"transported files on"
I just use computers for gaming. I have never built a PC to transfer files.
For example:
- Duke Nukem 3D cd 1996.
- Warcraft 2 cd 1996
------------------------------------
- NFS Carbon dvd 2006.
- Hitman Blood Money dvd 2006.

In 1991 my first own PC a Highscreen 286/12MHz came with only a 5.25" drive. I bought the 3.5" drive for it not much later.

The first dead-cheap no-name Genius clone mouse I bought for it came with drivers on a 5.25" floppy only. Same for the ET4000 ISA card that replaced the Hercules monochrome card in 1992.

user33331 wrote:

Anyone know when 5.25" diskettes disappeared completely off the market ? - I remember 3.5" disappeared around about 1996-97... - […]
Show full quote

Anyone know when 5.25" diskettes disappeared completely off the market ?
- I remember 3.5" disappeared around about 1996-97...
- I remember CDs disappeared around about 2005-06...
My last CD game if I remember is Need for Speed: Underground 2, 2004.

Floppy disks for storing and transporting data stayed much longer than 1997. I'd say until the early 2000s at least. You could buy them in electronic stores well into the early 2010s.

Windows XP only accepted additional HD adapter drivers (i.e. SCSI) on floppy disks at install time. It came out in 2001. This never changed during its whole life.

I remember when starting my second job in 1996 that an older co-worker complained that I'd got a new PC with a CDROM drive and he still had a floppy-only machine.

Thanks for opinions.
In the end I think I change in 2 CD-drives.
It looks more aesthetic and is more practical for my use.
The 5.25" is just too dark in color.

user33331 wrote:

"transported files on"
I just use computers for gaming. I have never built a PC to transfer files.

Computers aren't gaming consoles, transferring files back and forth is a pretty important feature, especially in an office environment. If you're looking to buy a new PC in the early 90's, being able to still use old floppies is a big plus. Stuff like this doesn't get phased out overnight so you can't really say they disappeared around a certain year.

Thanks
To me 5.25" feels more like 1980s than 1990s.
It kind of makes the computer look older than it is.
I think that is the reason why it bothers me.

When I think about 1990s PCs I think about 3.5" floppies and CD-roms.

Well that computer don't really use any piece of 90's tech (except the cd drives you just installed). The 386 is from the mid 80's, the floppy drives (even 3.5) are from the 80's, pre-ATA norm IDE first appeared in the 80's ...

It's just that the 386 were starting to become affordable by the early 90's. But CD drives were still way too expensive before 1992/1993 at least, they started to become common by the mid 90's. This didn't make the computer look older than it was, it was just period correct (cheap-ish early 90's 386)

The latest PC I had that came a 5.25" floppy drive was a 486. Pretty much never saw them included by default on later 486 or Pentium & above systems.

As to how commonplace they were in the 1990s in general, I have no idea as I was still using an 8088 PC in the mid 1990s and only used 5.25" floppies. I did briefly have a 5.25" drive installed in a Socket 7 Pentium build, but replaced it with a 2nd optical drive in the early 2000s.

My 386SX from 1991 and a 486DX2 from 1993/1994 have one. I think they started to disappear circa 1992/1993 and were totally gone from new PCs by 1995/1996