Floppy Enthusiasts?

[bingus_baby]

Any of y'all into floppies? I tried fixing my old drive the other day, but three cables and a wifi adapter later I caved and got a USB drive lmao, I guess the drive was beyond saving, but it's fun getting to peer into the past through these things! Found a bunch at some thrift stores and I'm having a blast! Almost all were blank except for a vacation photo and a spreadsheet. Makes me wonder, do any of y'all use floppies? What for? I want to know! I'm putting some fan fiction I like on 'em LMAO, but I don't have much use for them yet! Please do share, I'd love some ideas! Somewhere I read a guy likes using them for music and storing samples or something on them!

(And if anyone knows how floppy drives works, lmk because I still wanna save that aforementioned internal drive!)

[Cobra!]

Love my floppies! I'm actually planning to get a caddy/storage box for mine. I use them mainly for my Mavica cameras. Any photo you see from me are made using them.

I find them quite convenient in that context, actually. All of the USB ports on my PC are used up normally, and it's really annoying to have to upload a photo somewhere and then re-download it on my PC, so a Mavica is quite handy there. Just take a photo, take the disk out and in the PC, transfer the files, and then take the disk out.

It's a shame they aren't making new disks, and the sites/stores left making disks are starting to dry up in stock.

Not a huge issue for people like new and me given they're rewritable, but for any new games that come out for old PCs it might become an issue, 8-bit guy mentioned this when people ask about a re-run of his games. I guess we can only hope someone finds a way to make new disks.

[Guest]

Floppy disks are something that I do wish would return updated with later storage technology. I think they were much better at protecting its data than CDs given the plastic shell it had. The closest thing I know of that's in use (and in fact is apparently growing for archival uses) that's similar to floppy disks are more recent LTO tape drives.

[brisray]

I've got drawers full of the things. Some are still useful.

@Bingus_Baby - are you sure the disks are blank? Try something like Recuva on them. Often floppies were just given a quick format and the software can recover whatever was on them before the format.

[bingus_baby]

I've got drawers full of the things. Some are still useful.

@Bingus_Baby - are you sure the disks are blank? Try something like Recuva on them. Often floppies were just given a quick format and the software can recover whatever was on them before the format.

Pretty sure they are blank, as there's no labels and they're all in great condition. In one of the caddies it was only half full, so I'm assuming the previous owner took out anything with a label or real data on it. The other box was practically untouched it seemed, nothing missing or obviously used. (Except for a couple unmarked disks with a few files!) But I will have to try that later since I think I already have Recuva installed! A couple disks wouldn't read at all, so maybe it'll help with that too.

I sound snoopy lookin' through the files, but honestly I feel more like a data archaeologist hehe, it's sad to see things end up abandoned in thrift stores so I like to imagine I'm giving them another chance at life and appreciating the journey it's been through!

[Cobra!]

Floppy disks are something that I do wish would return updated with later storage technology. I think they were much better at protecting its data than CDs given the plastic shell it had. The closet thing I know of that's in use (and in fact is apparently growing for archival uses) that's similar to floppy disks are more recent LTO tape drives.

Funny you should mention that. In the late 90s, several companies tried to release a floppy disk formats that held several hundred megabytes and some "Super Disk" drives were able to squeeze 32MB from a regular 3.5" floppy!

It lost out to Zip Disks, though, which could store up to like 2GB.

[EtherealSerah]

I love floppy disks! One of the most enjoyable parts of getting an Amiga has been the tactility of inserting a floppy disk; it's just such a satisfying feeling when it clicks into place. I'm very fond of cassette and old-school CD drives for the same reason.

[wris]

I haven’t used them in a while, but I love how tactile they are.

I think SD cards are overlooked in that regard!

[EtherealSerah]

You're so right. SD cards feel great! Very similar sort of click.

I sometimes wonder if SD cards would have succeeded blu-rays as a primary storage medium for computer media if high-speed telecomputing had never come to be, but I suppose shipping multiple discs would likely still be much cheaper than a high-density SD card.

[Guest]

Still hanging onto mine :D
I like to think someone will discover them many years from now and be really confused about the stuff on them...
Also making the shutter click (some will understand) is quite fun :p

[Cobra!]

You're so right. SD cards feel great! Very similar sort of click.

I'll give you that, the click of those cards was satisfying as hell, but for everything else, floppy feels so much nicer! :P

[TheFrugalGamer]

I have an old Korg 01-W (keyboard synthesizer) that uses floppy disks to save sequencer patterns and voices. The CMOS battery died a while back so I have to load them every time I boot it up, but it's not a huge deal. I showed it to my teen once and it blew his mind! I love the little sound it makes when I'm loading stuff off of the floppies though 

[EtherealSerah]

I'll give you that, the click of those cards was satisfying as hell, but for everything else, floppy feels so much nicer! :P

For sure! Something about the extra bulk just feels good. Though I've only really used 3.5" floppies. Most software prior to the 16-bits was distributed via cassette over here, so I've never actually seen a 5¼-inch disk.

I also find that I associate floppies with cooler stuff. Like, SD cards are so practical, where a lot of my associations with floppy disks are loading up music disks or demos or other fun software like that.