posted
Now? I hardly ever use them. And the files were always small enough to fit on a floppy. Now, I have a burner so I can transfer files from this machine to any machine with a CD-ROM drive easily.
------------------ Star Trek: Leeds Creator, Producer, Only Writer
posted
See?! If you used those floppies, they would wear out quickly, but you have a better transfer mechanism anyway.
------------------ Frank's Home Page "People don't mind if you speak a subset of a natural language, especially if you are a child or a foreigner. (Except in Paris, of course.)" - Larry Wall
posted
But, in this case, the cake costs less than the bread.
------------------ Frank's Home Page "People don't mind if you speak a subset of a natural language, especially if you are a child or a foreigner. (Except in Paris, of course.)" - Larry Wall
I have a box of 3.5" floppy disks that I used way back when I had my first computer. Over the ten years I have had them, only three have bit the dust.
I use ten for archival purposes (school projects, documents, spreadsheets, web page material, and pictures). Four I have used on a daily basis for almost a full year. One of those four I have been using several times a day for the past month.
A floppy disk fails after a week? Never seen it happen. My mother's office uses nothing but the floppies. She says she replaces them after about a year or so.
------------------ 694 consecutive rejections by women since January 1993.
posted
It's a fact that 1.44-disks vary in quality. It's hard to make an estimate on how many will fail in a month if you don't know the brand. But I must say I welcome the day when larger storage-medias succeed the 1.44", at an AFFORDABLE price! I like the Castlewood ORB better than the ZIP, unfortunately Iomega has snatched the bigger piece of the market, but there's hope...
On the Win/Mac thingee I can only say that I have more experience with Windows and eagerly await the release of Win-Millennium, but could take a shot at MacOS-10 and the new stuff it brings, no problem. And I probably will, soon.
I wouldn't say Mac is for rookies but in my experience it can't match the feeling of a newly tuned -98, bent to your will and smooth as a melon-seed. Now if only I could shorten the boot-time!!
------------------ -At least I can get it up without biomechanical pumps. -Try falling into a pit of lava, Moffy. Then see how horny you feel.
posted
And, again, whenever I used floppies, if I used files of ~1MB in size, the disk would usually fail after one use. Just the other day we were trying to install Linux on some computers using floppies, and the disks would fail immediately. Of course, the floppies of today are inferior in quality to the floppies made a decade ago, so I suppose what Siegfried says could be possible. Keep in mind that I'm referring to using the disks to transfer files every day, not for archiving.
Also, floppes are over twice the cost per megabyte than Zip drive media, and over twenty times the cost per megabyte than Orb media. The notion that floppies are cost-effective is questionable at best.
------------------ Frank's Home Page "People don't mind if you speak a subset of a natural language, especially if you are a child or a foreigner. (Except in Paris, of course.)" - Larry Wall
posted
"It most certainly is a valid comparison. I haven't used a floppy in years..."
You haven't, but other people use them still. The same is not the case with 8-tracks. Completely invalid comparison.
"Fine, let's say that you use floppies to transfer files to another computer every day. Floppies are about $0.60/ea. Assuming a failure rate of one per week, you'd need to buy 52 floppies, which is about $30 a year."
Err, I've never bought a second set of floppies in my life. (Mind you, they're only about three or four years old.) Seriously. And not a single one has broken. I've lost a couple, but never have they broken.
And these weren't expensive floppies at all, either.
How often do I use them? Well, I always have at least one to carry back and forth to school everyday. For what files? Usually just word documents (My printer is dying and has been doing so for some time ), but I've used them for 1.2Mb+ stuff often enough.
I don't think that Siegfried and I are freak exceptions, either.
And I have friends who split files onto 3.5" disks for use over and over, too.
"And, again, whenever I used floppies, if I used files of ~1MB in size, the disk would usually fail after one use."
Must be a Mac thing.
------------------ "Warning: The contents of this Physics lab are 100% matter. Should the lab come in contact with antimatter in any way, a catastrophic explosion will occur."
posted
I want to know where you're all getting your magical super-floppies. While some can last for a while, it usually doesn't happen with those that have been heavily used. Besides, as I've said, the cost and capacity of the disks doesn't make them practical.
------------------ Frank's Home Page "People don't mind if you speak a subset of a natural language, especially if you are a child or a foreigner. (Except in Paris, of course.)" - Larry Wall
posted
Could it be that disks formatted for Macs don't last very long?
Nah...Macs are perfect! They never have anything wrong with them!
But s'pose its possible. I've never had floppies fail on me when I used them daily. Actually, its when I let them sit for long periods of time to they get messed up.
------------------ "Goverment exists to serve, not to lead. We do not exist by its volition, it exists by ours. Bear that in mind when you insult your neighbors for refusing to bow before it." J. Richmond, UB Student
posted
As I said, though, this was happening the other day with Linux computers, too.
------------------ Frank's Home Page "People don't mind if you speak a subset of a natural language, especially if you are a child or a foreigner. (Except in Paris, of course.)" - Larry Wall
------------------ Frank's Home Page "People don't mind if you speak a subset of a natural language, especially if you are a child or a foreigner. (Except in Paris, of course.)" - Larry Wall
posted
I have a set of floppies that I use for school and personal writing, and at least two of them I've been constantly using since I had my first computer--five years ago. They mostly carry word documents, but occasionally I've used them to transfer large programs between my two computers at home. But the most convenient part is that EVERY computer, old or new, has a floppy drive (except you-know-what). We do have a ZIP drive at home now, but it's useless to me (my brother uses it) because there are no ZIP drives in my school's computer lab.
On the subject of Windows vs Mac, I probably wouldn't mind using a Mac, but I'd never give up the joy of computer games for a simpler computer.
------------------ "One more day before the storm At the barricades of freedom! When our ranks begin to form Will you take your place with me?" --Enjolras, "One Day More," Les Miserables
posted
Hmmm, this seems to be a rather large tempest in a teapot. Considering floppy drives only cost about $10 in Canadian dollars, its hardly a big expense. Just open up the case and plop it in. As for floppies costing a ton of money....geez...I should really sell off the dozen cases of spare floppies I have...they should be worth a fortune The damn things last forever, I've been using reformatted AOL disks for years to school and back. What do you people freaking do to them?!?!? But seriously, I have a network at home, and a cd-burner.Yet a floppy is great for pure convenience and compatibility. Can you honestly say every computer you come into contact with has a Zip drive? nope...only like 5% penetration in all computers that I've seen. And whos going to burn a 650MB cd to transfer a few text files?
If you used those floppies, they would wear out quickly, but you have a better transfer mechanism anyway.
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