Do you think floppy will ever die?

[pennies]

It's going to have to die anyways, but it's going to take a while, especially if those 6th graders in schools don't use flash drives yet...

They do. At least my sister did.

 

[Eric@TLG]

floppy will be replaced by the much more smaller and larger capacity flash drives. No doubt about it. Especially with the price drops in flash drives floppy stands no chance.

 

[Dan]

I thought floppies died ages ago... I haven't seen one for years.

 

[scummerz]

is floppys like 4.8Mb capacity, flash drives are the future and not floppys or maybe external hard drives will be the future but definitly not floppys

 

[dannyk]

Floppies make excellent replacement clay pigeons if you ever go shooting. :biggthump

 

[Daniel S]

i think floppy drive will die as they are very slow to use when they are full and a floppy disk often breaks quickly so you loose some data.

And they are only 1.5 mb and there is not much that is less than that

you can still boot into dos for any reason not that there is one but you can do that of usb drives

 

[adrenlinerush]

only thing I use floppies for now is the rare occasion that I need to flash a bios ROM... linux boot cd's have taken the place of the old win98 boot floppy...

 

[Xemnas]

Floppies are dying, that is true, but not useless - right now I want to run Windows 3.1 in Virtual PC (I have ALL my dad's old 3.1 floppies), and I can't because I don't have a floppy drive on my comp. Which also means I can't use 95 in VPC since I only have the Upgrade version. Who knows, I might one day find a VHD with 3.1 pre-installed, but unless I find one (malware-free) or get a floppy drive, I can only dream . . .

And, let's not forget all those DOS games some of us are still holding onto (me? Grand Prix 2, Operation: Overlord, Flight Simulator and so on . . .). There are emulators you can use to run them now, so get your floppy drive and start reliving those memories!

 

[ramj1]

I do think the floppy disk will die out if not already considered dead in most places. I personally use my flash drive for most everything i need to take with me on travels (when I don't take my laptop), and I'm planning on getting a portable hard drive soon. I only have a few computers left that actually have floppy drives, and they're both over 6 years old =P

 

[callumacrae]

I think it will die, I still do use them but I only use them for backing my work up as it usually only word docs and excel. But at my school they have started providing free 512mb memory sticks and so they are being used more. The computers all have floopy drives installed though. Floppies can also be wiped really easily using a magnet.

 

[InsanityOnline]

Lol.

I haven't even seen a single floppy in several years.

But then I don't stay very near computers.

I voted "What's a floppy".

 

[wolf693]

If they aren't already long gone, I'd say yes, they'll die. With new technologies coming out such as 64GB flash drives and high capacity CD's and DVD's, not to mention simple backup. My laptop has a floppy drive on it, but isn't used very much. My other two computers have no floppy whatsoever, but then again they have at least two HD's in them.

 

[Livewire]

If they aren't already long gone, I'd say yes, they'll die. With new technologies coming out such as 64GB flash drives and high capacity CD's and DVD's, not to mention simple backup. My laptop has a floppy drive on it, but isn't used very much. My other two computers have no floppy whatsoever, but then again they have at least two HD's in them.

I've got a floppy drive in the house but it's essentially useless - I got it for $1.50 out of a dead pc so I could get all the data off of my numerious floppies from the days I had a Headstart Explorer from (hey, that's back when DOS was the best).

Oddly enough all that data fit on a single cd. Not a good sign for floppy >_<


My guess is floppy is either unofficially dead or well on its way. Won't be long before floppy drives themselves aren't purchasable anywhere but junkyards.

 

[Sohail]

In my country the floppy disk is already extinct!
Most people don't know what it is and you would never be able to find it at any store!

 

[Livewire]

In my country the floppy disk is already extinct!
Most people don't know what it is and you would never be able to find it at any store!

People locally know what they are but I can't think of a single sane person who would buy them. Only store that still sells them is the one at the college, and they charge $1.50 a disc. And to be honest they have to - none of the tech-ed pc's have floppy drives, so they have to encourage you to buy the el-cheapo 64mb/128mb flash drives they have with the college logo on it for $3/$6, depending which you get. They got those on a bargain sale.

I can't honestly see anyone buying a single floppy for $1.50 when you can get the 64mb drive with the college name on it for $3. Just can't.

 

[dpurcell]

Just the other day I had a system crash that would have been catastrophic had I not put a floppy drive on the client's computer. Thanks to the floppy we were able to get to the oh so handy dos prompt and restore the OS. Only needed a simple file but the recovery process for windows sux, their solution is re-install.
Furthermore, that same client uses a type of machine in her business that reads designs off a floppy disk so she uses them quite a bit. I'd say there's always going to be a use for a bios booting, re-writable, removable storage. Even if we make it something else, the "floppy" nitche has to be filled.

 

[discokidds2]

i thought they were already dead.
i don't know aanyone who uses them at all anymore.
well we use them at school that only cause the don't store alot so we don't play games or anything of that sort.

they are dead!

 

[maliq11101]

i think the floppy will die because peoples now uses memory sticks and memory sticks have an higher amount of space , i have i memory stick 8 gb that is 3 times easy from floppy wich has 1.44 mb space.

 

[Blazer9131]

Floppy's will Never die out.. sure normal people dont use them, but Tech-ies like my self use them very often. Yah sure you can make BOOTable CD's but floppy's are sick. Also, YOU CAN MAKE A BOMB OUT OF A FLOPPY!!! hehehe... PM me to ask me how =P

 

[HomerJ]

I was under the impression that floppies are no longer being manufactured. I heard that all of the companies making them stopped due to their antiquity and general uselessness.

The only thing I use them for are very rare BIOS updates. And there are other ways to do that now, too. Of course, I still have a floppy drive on all of my PCs (except my server). They just don't get used. USB devices and ideally, networking, are the way of the future.