As I see it, it's time to take the task of managing storage platforms out of the hands of consumers and individual businesses. It's time for everyone to consider cloud-based options seriously.

Creepy stuff there IMO.

I think I'll stick with DVDR and USB sticks, k thanks!

It's time for everyone to consider cloud-based options seriously

I'll consider it when there's an OC3 going to my house....even then I'll still have a local copy.

I got a couple of things in the post today. Some floppy disks (on topic!), a usb modem, and a usb extension cable. The online retailer had a choice of Sony or Imation floppy disks. I've bought Sony in the past and had a few problems with them. So I decided to get the Imation ones this time around.

I've never bought a usb modem before. Here's the deal - for £45 (70US$ / 52Euro), you get the thing delivered with 3 months of internet access. Each month you're capped to 2GB of downloading. Apparently, if you go over this limit you're not charged extra, but you may face restrictions. Installation was simple - you plug it in and click Next Next Next until it starts working. The connection speed is 3.6 Mbps. I've switched off "automatically load images" in my browser in order to keep within the 2GB monthly limit. All of this sucks of course. I'd rather just plug a modem in to a phone socket on the wall, but I'm moving this Friday and will be stuck in a flat (apartment) for 6 months without a phone line. This will also scupper my chances of retesting all of my retro components I bought on ebay. It's likely I won't be able to start this until November. I was really hoping for July. I haven't managed to do many hardware testing posts recently, because moving is quite time consuming.

The usb extension lead is for the modem. I was thinking of attaching the modem to it, then taping the modem to a window to get a better signal. (My new flat has a charming view of the fire escape, with bird poop all over it!) I've tested the lead with the modem, and it works.

I often think that if I won a lottery, I'd hire a "retro assistant" who would be able to buy lots of awesome retro components, build some really cool PCs, then install loads of great old DOS and win9x games, configure everything so it worked just right, so that I could just sit back and actually play some games!

Heh, and today I had just browsed through my 5 1/4 floppydrives to choose one to put into one of my next systems!

Funny note: I can remember having read that 7 year old article he wrote, he looks so much younger on that picture! Time flies 🤣

I didn't even know someone was still making floppies. Does anyone still make floppy drives nowdays? Probably not, and I'd rather use one of my old high-quality drives then one of those cheaply made drives that were being sold for €7 new stock just a few years ago.

swaaye wrote:

As I see it, it's time to take the task of managing storage platforms out of the hands of consumers and individual businesses. It's time for everyone to consider cloud-based options seriously.

Over my dead body.

Tetrium wrote:

Does anyone still make floppy drives nowdays? Probably not, and I'd rather use one of my old high-quality drives then one of those cheaply made drives that were being sold for €7 new stock just a few years ago.

I just checked ebuyer.com, where I bought some really cheap Sony FDDs only last year. (They cost less than 5 euros each!) But all this stock has now gone! I checked some other online retailers too, and they no longer sell them either. I was going to get a couple more, just for back ups, but now it looks like I'll have to hunt about for "NOS" 3.5" FDDs on ebay. I doubt if I'll have any trouble finding a couple of units...

I'll just scavange them from dumped systems...not that I'm short on floppydrives.

It's a good thing I still have a huge stash then. The odd part is, I don't really even use them for anything anymore. :p Then again, most of my machines have USB ports, so whenever I need to sneakernet something over, I can just use a thumbdrive.

There's an article about this topic (Sony stopping floppy disk production) in the newspaper this morning. The end part says "Sony sold 12 million [floppy disks] in its home country of Japan last year." With that in mind, it's curious why Sony are halting production - I think it's in March 2011.

retro games 100 wrote:

There's an article about this topic (Sony stopping floppy disk production) in the newspaper this morning. The end part says "Sony sold 12 million [floppy disks] in its home country of Japan last year." With that in mind, it's curious why Sony are halting production - I think it's in March 2011.

There are probably a lot of reasons. Sales might not be enough to keep an assembly line open and profitable. Maybe Sony did some research and found that most sales were from people who are hoarding them for future use, therebye promising even less sales. If nobody is making new floppy dirves, what is the point to making new media for it? And finally, most people aren't retro pc lovers. USB drives work all the way back to Win 98SE, so how many people can't use any other option other than a floppy drive nowadays?

Actually, I'm surprised that floppy's are still available. I would have thought that cd-r's would have killed them five years ago.

Yes, I was wondering about this too. I thought the presence of USB drives would have destroyed the floppy disks long before.

But it's a grim news for all retro-pc enthusiasts. Besides bringing good memories, many important tasks are performed by booting to a floppy disk.

I still use the 5 floppy disks (made on backup disks) for installing the dos AWE32 drivers and win3.11 applications.

I have good experience with Sony 3.5" FDs (my Doom2 backups have proven good for 15 years!), but I'll miss the years of Verbatim 5.25" FDs. I've managed to retain a still sealed box of Verbatim 5.25" floppy disks. I don't know when I'll use them or if they will work when I want to use them. And I still have some unopened 3.5" Sony FDs (bought a wholesale box of 20 units).

Many important tasks like bios flashing, diagnostic softwares, PnP utilities, memory based programs, speed tests, etc require the floppy drive in older systems.

A retro system will not "look" retro without a floppy drive, and it's crippled, if it can't use a floppy disk.

Though I have backups of all my dos games and dos programs on hard drives and CD-Rs and DVDs, it is indeed a sad news for classic PCs.

I do wonder if there are industrial applications for floppies, or some such niche that needs them still.

I thought this article was interesting -

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8646699.stm ("The mystery of the mega-selling floppy disk")

Article overview: "Sony has said it will stop making floppy disks, after nearly three decades. Yet millions of them are still being bought every year."

The article was also mentioned on a Dutch newssite.

I was pleasantly surprised that, even though the site has nothing to do with computers (and neither do the ones posting there), many people still have quite a feel of nostalgia towards floppies. One mentioned he still had a DX2-66 in his attic he uses from time to time for those old games as he didn't like dosbox.

Reading it put a smile on my face actually 😀
I could post a link to that article but eh...it's in Dutch

Hey, nice article btw 😉