Floppy Discs and Technology

[Lord Pikey]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/864669...

After reading this piece it has given me a thought. The symbol of the floppy disc is the universal symbol of "saving". How long until we have to explain to the younger generations what the picture is on the "saving button".

A floppy drive is pretty much non-existent now on most new laptops and pc's unless you spec it yourself.

While im at it, why doesnt the symbol for "paste" look like a damn brush or glue stick or something else logical rather than a clipboard (yes i know things get copied to the clipboard for storage)?

[soad]

Haven't used floppy discs in years and never will again.

USB flash drives much better!

[Arese]

I remember the days of buying them in their 100's, in any colour you could think of. Then copying endless games off my mates every weekend for the Atari ST, using Fastcopy Pro. Things were so much simpler in those days.

[K87]

I never liked floppies, they always seemed to crash or corrupt losing me lots of school homework!






Or maybe thats just the excuse i told the teachers!

[Pints]

I've still got a pile of floppys at home. Not sure what's on them. Must remember to save them to data sticks (if they haven't been corrupted yet).

[Snoop Bagg]

The last time I used a floppy disk was to load Windows 3.1 using something like 10 disks when windows since fits on one CD!

[DeputyDawg]

Snoop Bagg said:

The last time I used a floppy disk was to load Windows 3.1 using something like 10 disks when windows since fits on one CD!

I think it was 11 disks (yes I know I'm sad)

[eps]

DeputyDawg said:

Snoop Bagg said:

The last time I used a floppy disk was to load Windows 3.1 using something like 10 disks when windows since fits on one CD!

I think it was 11 disks (yes I know I'm sad)

Nah that must have been Windows 3.11...

Or when some people used to hole punch the 720s to get them to work as 1.44s...!!

I've been attempting to install DOS (yes I know!) for someone that wants it, so they can use an old version
of the software that they're happy to still use. It's been an "interesting" journey... I attempted to use Dosbox, but
that was inconsistent, they're using AutoCAD 11 (!) and then tried VMWare.. but that was too slow. I think I'll just
have to install DOS with GAG in place and then reinstall Windows 7 allow them to choose DOS or Windows 7. I've tried FreeDOS, but that seems inconsistent and sometimes the memory handling doesn't seem quite up to what AutoCAD is expecting. I have tried to get
them interested in a version of AutoCAD that will work on Windows 7, but they're not interested in learning a new piece
of software..

[Arese]

eps said:

DeputyDawg said:

Snoop Bagg said:

The last time I used a floppy disk was to load Windows 3.1 using something like 10 disks when windows since fits on one CD!

I think it was 11 disks (yes I know I'm sad)

Nah that must have been Windows 3.11...

Or when some people used to hole punch the 720s to get them to work as 1.44s...!!

I've been attempting to install DOS (yes I know!) for someone that wants it, so they can use an old version
of the software that they're happy to still use. It's been an "interesting" journey... I attempted to use Dosbox, but
that was inconsistent, they're using AutoCAD 11 (!) and then tried VMWare.. but that was too slow. I think I'll just
have to install DOS with GAG in place and then reinstall Windows 7 allow them to choose DOS or Windows 7. I've tried FreeDOS, but that seems inconsistent and sometimes the memory handling doesn't seem quite up to what AutoCAD is expecting. I have tried to get
them interested in a version of AutoCAD that will work on Windows 7, but they're not interested in learning a new piece
of software..

Crikey! It would be easier to give them a different PC for DOS only, and use a KVM to switch between the two.

[.Mark]

K87 said:

I never liked floppies, they always seemed to crash or corrupt losing me lots of school homework!

Or maybe thats just the excuse i told the teachers!

In my day it was always the dog ate it! Homework on Floppy Disk, I ask you! They'll be asking us what a cassette was next!

[bigdods]

In answer to the OP - Monday this week. My 10 year old asked me why the save button looked like that. I explained. He gave me that look that is pitying but also suggests you are slightly bonkers that kids give older people when they explain some dinosaur technology ...

[Smashed]

My mother works in a primary school and she says she often gets what's a cassette etc when she's brought it up for whatever obscure reason.

[FunkyNige]

You pressed 'return' at between your paragraphs, a throw-back from the carriage-return of the typewriter era, same with backspace. Hell, we've all got scroll lock buttons which we never press from the DOS days. Save being a funny symbol of old school computing will just join these I reckon...

[VEA]

I actually use Floppy disks on a near daily basis, using them as book disks to get into ghost.

It is just so much easier than getting the ndisk drivers for all the different machines that I have to clone.

[RizzoTheRat]

I had a 26 floppy disk installation of MS Office. That was a pain to install.

Office 2007 Enterprise is only 532Mb, I thought it would have been more, though I'm glad it's on CD not 380 floppies!