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Interesting that this computer that im typing this on has a floppy drive, which apparently doesnt work anymore. :O Or maybe it's just that I deactivated it some time ago, can't remember.
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dreadcog: That's cool man, if you enjoy watching games install. I'm here to play games.
My experience with technology is that all they know how to do is piggyback or cannibalize what came out before. Blurays are just CDs. Larger harddrives just have better data compression. Fast NEW processors are just processors inside of processors.
There's only so many times you can reinvent the wheel.

i see... so you know nothing about technology then.
Well, the floppy will live on in games as the quintessential icon for "save."
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Faithful: Well, the floppy will live on in games as the quintessential icon for "save."

And one would need a floppy to play the origonal Wizardry Releases. ;-)
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Lou: And one would need a floppy to play the origonal Wizardry Releases. ;-)

How so? DOSBox can emulate disk swaps if I recall correctly.
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Lou: And one would need a floppy to play the origonal Wizardry Releases. ;-)
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Arkose: How so? DOSBox can emulate disk swaps if I recall correctly.

The origonal Wiz Titles actually loaded their own OS from the disks. I do have the re-issued cd version but to play those origonals you need a floppy drive. I was speaking of playing the origonal games from the disks not a DOSBox version.
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Arteveld: No more Floppy shurineks;(

Ah, I've found what I was looking for!
Without floppies, we can't make new Starship Enterprises!
Floopies still have relevance from a technical or maintenance prospective. I still update BIOS's, run memtest, install controller drivers at OS install, etc. with floppies. There are still a bunch of older machines out there that don't support booting from flash media, but are still decent machines for a common user that mainly uses it as a web appliance. This is also the case in a lot of corporate network client and server hardware.
About 4 to 5 yrs ago I quit running a permanently installed floppy drive and just bought a slim line usb one to use just for tech'ing. Since they only need to interface at usb 1.1, this makes them generally compatible with 10 year old hardware.
Post edited April 30, 2010 by HampsterStyle
They have been making a progress, switching to using CDs and USB flash drives, but there are few local accounting / finance / money related companies here that still use floppies.
A cheap external floppy drive would be the perfect way to go now (if you really want to have something to read floppies with).
I still find floppy disks very useful. I keep a floppy with my last will and testament affixed to my fridge door with a magnet, just in case something happens to me.
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HampsterStyle: This is also the case in a lot of corporate network client and server hardware.

Just being nitpicky but in that use-case no, it's not the case. But maybe you'd like to expand on it because it's pretty vague in order for me to go into detail and explain why.
On short though, your servers come already with everything they need 99% of the time and when they don't you do a network install or use a ready-made image that has everything you need. As for updating the BIOS, you have been able to do that without a floppy and just by running a script for quite some time now; also, you don't usually update the BIOS on a server or even a client unless the things it adds are really useful or the things it patches are, again, really important (which tends not to happen too often with server motherboards).
Don't most computer board manufacturers require a floppy to make a bootable disk with the new releases of the bios to be installed at boot time? It's interesting that when it comes to repairing, doing bios stuff and the like hardware makers have mostly ignored USB.
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HampsterStyle: This is also the case in a lot of corporate network client and server hardware.
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AndrewC: Just being nitpicky but in that use-case no, it's not the case. But maybe you'd like to expand on it because it's pretty vague in order for me to go into detail and explain why.
...

You are being nitpicky but I'll dignify it with a response just this once :)
Substitute "business" for "corporate" in that statement and it should be more digestable to you if you can comprehend the folllowing.
- Not all machines used in a business capacity are for running MS Word or Outlook - or for that matter have the latest MS O.S. Examples of this can include "point-of-sale" machines, data base terminals, older network infrastructure hardware like routers and firewalls or similar computing devices that still employ the floppy.
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AndrewC: On short though, your servers come already with everything they need 99% of the time and when they don't you do a network install or use a ready-made image that has everything you need. As for updating the BIOS, you have been able to do that without a floppy and just by running a script for quite some time now; also, you don't usually update the BIOS on a server or even a client unless the things it adds are really useful or the things it patches are, again, really important (which tends not to happen too often with server motherboards).

- There are plenty of smaller or mid size organizations that are still running servers 8 or more yrs. old and/or that still use win2k active directory domains. Yes, of course I'm aware of the ability to "not be low level" in order to update a BIOS. Dell, which held a good portion of the above mentioned business hardware market, for example have provided "in O.S." windows based bios flashers for yrs. Some, like myself, prefer to be more cautious and update at the lowest level possible. As far as server BIOS upgrades, this could necessitate from a storage capacity upgrade, RAID or SCSI hardware replacement, compatibility fix with backup software and/or hardware, etc. Considering hard drives tend to be higher fail time items based on being an intricate high revolution and precission mechanical device, older client machines may necessitate a BIOS upgrade for storage upgrage/maintenance.