Originally published at: How the floppy disk scene's going in 2022 | Boing Boing
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The thing about floppy disks (that is, the 3.5inch not the 8inch) is they are convenient to stack (ok “pile”) and label. These features are lacking in memory sticks. Ever try to label a memory stick? Have a rattle-ly box of disparately shaped memory sticks? Memory sticks would be oh so much more pleasant if they were produced in same shape wafer form.
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It’s hard to imagine now that disk errors used to be an everyday occurrence. That tedium and anxiety of hoping the data were still good doesn’t hold any nostalgic value for most of us who had to deal with the failures of the old media in our work lives.
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In moving I found my Amiga and IBM disks… Probably have some short stories from high school on there as well as old BASIC programs. I feel like I copied these disks once… I found my old 90s computer that still has a floppy drive too… maybe Ill try to boot it up and copy the disks over and send them to recycle.
HRM - do I have a monitor that will work with computer? I used to…
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Anyone who ever had to install Amiga Video Toasters pre-CD knows the pain of trying to find a complete stack of 50 working disks for an install!
I do not miss those days, nor the decision on Commodore’s part to make “HD” Amiga disks work by halving the speed of the disk so it could write more data. Ugh!
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I recently hooked up my old Tandy Coco 3 to a cheap TV, along with the old CASSETTE drive. Pleasantly surprised that all of my old programs loaded right up, all the things I had typed up from the back of “The Rainbow” magazine and the terrible BASIC games that I programmed myself.
My gamer-nerd kid was decidedly unimpressed.
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Had a co-worker that fished a stack of 8" floppies out of the trash, spray painted them gold, and gave them out as awards to his team.
They loved it. They were so “retro”… back in the 1990’s.
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I finally started getting around to copying off files from my old floppy disks, Mac and PC formatted. I bought a superdrive and I have no problem reading 720K DOS formatted and 1.4MB DOS and Mac formatted, but I cannot read 800K Mac formatted disks because Apple did something weird (variable speed reading and writing) but made sense at the time. Luckily a friend has an old Mac SE that can read the disks. Obviously, without an emulator I can’t run any of the old programs, but I want to copy off any old documents.
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I gave a pile of 1970s 8" IBM DisplayWriter floppies to a friend who cuts records, so that he could use their jackets as sleeves for singles. They were well received, that being their highest use.
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Speaking of Commodore software, here’s the “memory shelf” in my office:
I also had perforated rolls of tape, but I can’t locate them at the moment. One was about 30 feet long, and had a “game” where if you typed in the month, date, and year it could tell you what day that was.
The 8-inch disk is from an old Terak 8510.
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We were still using punched paper tape in 2001 at my old job. And no, we were absolutely not allowed to save any of it.
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I still keep a 2004 Dell tower running Win XP and with a built-in 3.5" drive for the increasingly rare - but I suspect not yet over - occasions when I need to dig out some old file from the family cigar boxes of floppies.
Actually though I consider 3.5" arriviste and populist: 5.25" are my true passion 
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Had to check our spare parts shelf, but sure enough we at least have the drives here in the library IT department. (Those boxes have never been opened.) I don’t see any actual floppies but there are a lot of boxes I’m slightly afraid to open!
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I got a big box of 3.5" disks I keep meaning to pack up and ship to jwz at DNA Lounge.
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It would be ok IF MEMORY STICKS WORKED BETWEEN ONE LINUX BOX AND THE NEXT FUCK, I HATE EVERYTHING WHY, GOD? WHYYYYYY?!?!
But I digress.
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Last time I saw an actual floppy (that’s what she said) was probably around 2012 when we were clearing out some old cabinets in the data center on site at the office of a place I used to work. Of course, that room had been in constant use since I believe 1997 or something, which was before my time there. IT folks tend to be packrats sometimes… The storage room at my collocation is a nightmare right now based on the last pictures I saw.
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Let’s see … we were moving into our new home, so that was 2018 for me? I had a large case full of software that I finally convinced myself to throw out as I accepted I not only was never going to run any of it again, but I didn’t even have a drive that would accept it anymore. I really can’t accurately explain how difficult it was to let go of that box into the dumpster!
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