Dell finally says bye to floppy

[kelly]

Like someone said.."Welcome to the 20th Century".  

http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0302/06.dell.php

[JoeDu]

They were talking about this on AM radio during my commute. I was laughing. They were saying "What are we supposed to do with all these floppies? What about everything I have saved on them?"

A lady I who contracted me for graphics gave me a floppy with data on it. "I need that back," she said. "It's not blank. I have an important file on it."

I plan on giving her all of mine, left over from my pre-zip days circa 1996. The Peecee world will always be playing catch-up and follow the leader.

[pendragon]

Dell is just a little bit behind. Apple quit using floppies with the introduction of the iMac in August 1998!

Harv

[Gregg]

Sorry, I'm one of those dinosaurs that thinks it was a bad move. I don't need a 600MB CD to store several 22K files on. Floppy disks are just the ticket for me. I also use 100MB Zip disks for longer term storage and backups. I haven't needed anything bigger, but I have compressed a bunch of files to fit them on a Zip disk. My backups are compressed as well. I do not have a CD burner, a scanner, or a digital camera. I don't work with graphics or pictures or movies or music. There isn't any "one size fits all" set up. I'd prefer more options, not fewer.

[swhitset]

Greg,

My first reaction is to agree with you.  Your points are valid, however, I must now be honest with myself and look at my own situation.  If you check my profile you will see that I have an Imation SuperDisk drive (as well as a zip drive and an external CD-R/RW.. Not to mention the Superdrive on my FP imac).  I have not inserted a floppy into that Imation drive in over a year.  it is just to easy to email small files to people.  For back up, I use CD-Rs, my iPod, and I transfer files over the network to my 333 imac.  I have also been known to put files on a compact flash card, and just carry the pocket sized reader along  with it.  No drivers are needed for the reader on any computer running OS X.. just plug it in.  

In any event, there are still some uses for the floppy, but I think that at least in my case, most of them have been replaced with better technology.

Why do I keep the SuperDisk?  Mostly for compatibility with PC  friends that might happen to bring over something on a floppy.  My father in law brought me an excel spreadsheet that he was having problems with on a foppy.   I was able to mount it and deal with his problems.  So until more PC manufacturers eliminate the Floppy drive, I suppose I will need to keep mine around.  But, for my own purposes, the floppy is dead.

Seve

[kelly]

There is certainly no need to make them built in to new macs.  

That would really mess up the designs.

For the one person in a thousand that needs one there's the external solution.

On a PC, not sure it matters. I guess they figure they can save $6 to not have them.

Certainly makes no difference in a Beige Box design.

Floppies used to be essential for troubleshooting.

I guess they have more CD Boot options for fixes now.