jwt27 wrote:

There are 2.4MB (5.25") drives too: http://www.ebay.com/itm/371280704001

I don't know how or why, but I always found 5.25" floppies to be much more reliable than 3.5".

I have found the opposite to be true. They are not covered and can be damaged by flexing.
I always end up with bad sectors on 5 inch floppies.

I agree with you jwt I don't think I've ever had a bad 5.25" but my 3.5" diskettes seems always flakey.

King_Corduroy wrote:

I agree with you jwt I don't think I've ever had a bad 5.25" but my 3.5" diskettes seems always flakey.

I'm sure I have a few bad 5 inch floppies somewhere, but I lost count of all the 3.5" floppies that went bad just minutes after removing the shrinkwrap. 😀

Somewhat related, I just found the most beautiful Canon dual 5.25" floppy drive. I feel obliged to post pictures of it.

devius wrote:

tayyare wrote:

... those "hacked" floppies were always notoriously unreliable.

Yeah, because the non-hacked ones were so reliable and would never fail at 99% on the last disk of a set of 10 when uncompressing a large file or anything... 🤣

There is a difference between "unreliable" and "notoriously unreliable"... 🤣

Lukeno94 wrote:

alexanrs wrote:

Up to five years ago we still needed floppies here at the University I attended to so we could get our assignments in and out some ancient PCs with finicky USB support xD

My Uni still needs floppies for certain pieces of lab equipment.

Being in the CNC machining business for years, I never stopped using floppies. You generally don't "upgrade" your CNC machines once in every two years. 🤣

Here's this weird (but awesome!) Canon floppy drive: http://imgur.com/a/5WSfS

Didn't buy this today, but found it inside a computer.

jwt27 wrote:

There are 2.4MB (5.25") drives too: http://www.ebay.com/itm/371280704001

I don't know how or why, but I always found 5.25" floppies to be much more reliable than 3.5".

The only problem with those is where do you find 2.4mb floppies to use with it? They're probably almost as hard to find as floptical media. 2.88mb 3.5" floppies can still be found sometimes, but I've seen more 8" floppies for sale in recent years than 2.4mb.

jwt27 wrote:

Here's this weird (but awesome!) Canon floppy drive: http://imgur.com/a/5WSfS

Didn't buy this today, but found it inside a computer.

Beautiful!

The eject buttons on that Canon drive look pretty slick.

sliderider wrote:

The eject buttons on that Canon drive look pretty slick.

And have a more satisfying click than a Model M!
I also like how the metal casing around the read/write heads makes them look much like a turntable cartridge. 😀

sliderider wrote:

jwt27 wrote:

There are 2.4MB (5.25") drives too: http://www.ebay.com/itm/371280704001

I don't know how or why, but I always found 5.25" floppies to be much more reliable than 3.5".

The only problem with those is where do you find 2.4mb floppies to use with it? They're probably almost as hard to find as floptical media. 2.88mb 3.5" floppies can still be found sometimes, but I've seen more 8" floppies for sale in recent years than 2.4mb.

I don't think 2.4MB floppies even exist. Apparently, these drives can somehow format 2.4MB onto standard DS/HD (1.2MB) floppies.

jwt27 wrote:

Here's this weird (but awesome!) Canon floppy drive: http://imgur.com/a/5WSfS

Didn't buy this today, but found it inside a computer.

Those are actually from a 8086 "laptop". If memory serves it was a Sharp brand. I can take a few pics later today.

That's right, it's from a Sharp PC-7000. Was waiting to see if someone would recognize it 😀

AMD K6-2 350 with a Voodoo3 3000 from a flea market (5e).

Picked up a Core 2 Duo E8500 (can these be considered retro yet?) for my socket 775 build today. Shortly thereafter had to take cover as tornadoes rolled over the area. Just another lovely spring day! 🤣

joe6pack wrote:

Picked up a Core 2 Duo E8500 (can these be considered retro yet?) for my socket 775 build today. Shortly thereafter had to take cover as tornadoes rolled over the area. Just another lovely spring day! 🤣

IMO No. I am still using a socket 775 board (with a C2Q) and play 2011-2013 video games and browse the modern web as well as do software development with no problems.
After socket 775, CPU speed increases slowed down dramatically.

Yeah I'm still using LGA775 Core 2 Duo machines for my modern computing, they are pretty plentiful and cheap at the moment and they run great after a few upgrades. 😁

Bought a SONY Trinitron 17" CRT today. Just need to go pick it up this weekend. I have a 20" CRT, but that thing is just WAY too massive and is starting to exhibit some signs of death. Besides, growing up I played Wing Commander on a 14" pos generic monitor for three years before getting a 17" CRT. Its supposedly in pristine condition with a perfect picture. All for $15. I'll post photos of my setup Sunday.

smeezekitty wrote:

IMO No. I am still using a socket 775 board (with a C2Q) and play 2011-2013 video games and browse the modern web as well as d […]
Show full quote

joe6pack wrote:

Picked up a Core 2 Duo E8500 (can these be considered retro yet?) for my socket 775 build today. Shortly thereafter had to take cover as tornadoes rolled over the area. Just another lovely spring day! 🤣

IMO No. I am still using a socket 775 board (with a C2Q) and play 2011-2013 video games and browse the modern web as well as do software development with no problems.
After socket 775, CPU speed increases slowed down dramatically.

+1

My main rig is a LGA775 Core2 Quad. the last games I played are from 2012 I guess, but otherwise I have no problems with it in whatever I do (photo and video editing, cybernating, etc.)

Still using 775 here for now too, possibly upgrading to a better 775 shortly.

joe6pack wrote:

Picked up a Core 2 Duo E8500 (can these be considered retro yet?) ...

Sure, they are way to slow for current SW / games and the whole s775 platform is kinda obsolete (no USB 3.0, 8GB RAM limit, etc)... at least for me. 😀 Nehalem+ is in some cases twice as fast (single thread) and even faster in multithread capable applications. Haswell Pentium G3258 is very cheap and performance boost is huge (if 2 cores are enough for you).