4 ms·

Don't get us old guys started on the number of floppies...

by Varcht 8y ago

_ZeD_ 8y ago
I still remember the 4 floppies of monkey island AND the inside joke when you find a stomp and the game starts to ask for the disk #22!
mrec 8y ago
Oh god yes. Back before hard disks (Amiga A500+ in my case), trying to play an N-floppy game on a 1-floppy system was... character-building.
- bparsons 8y ago
  I remember Microsoft Space Simulator had something like 11 discs to install.
  - mrec 8y ago
    Yeah, but (presumably) at least you only had to install it once.
me551ah 8y ago
Still remember Windows 95 with 21 floppies.
- gscott 8y ago
  The difference between Win 3.1 and Win 95 was really life changing. The usability of Win 95 certainly sped up adoption of the Web by non-university/govt users.
- peatmoss 8y ago
  Early Linux distros downloaded via 14.4kbps modem for me. I... don’t even remember how many floppies that took. Lots as I recall.
  - ansible 8y ago
    My first Linux distro was SLS, sporting Linux kernel version 0.99pl12, and it came on 15 5.25in floppies. I only had Usenet at the time, so I wasn't able to download it directly, and had to pay some random person to mail me the floppies. I was then setting up my own little TCP/IP network with a NFS server on my two machines, connected via coax Ethernet using NE2000 network cards. Thank goodness for CD-ROMs. Only a few years after that, I was able to just go into a computer store and just buy a single CD with Yggdrasil (or RH or Slackware) which made the whole process much easier. As long as your system could boot off of CD-ROM... sometimes you still needed to make a boot disk.
  - tracker1 8y ago
    I had a friend that only used two floppies... one installing on a new computer, the other downloading the next disk... (isdn line) It actually worked out pretty well.
  - me551ah 8y ago
    My first modem was 2.4kbps. Thankfully google didn't exist back then
- phaedrus 8y ago
  In 2002 I decided to install Windows 95 on a black & white Win3.1-based laptop, just for the heck of it. It had a one or two hundred megabyte hard drive, but only a floppy drive for I/O, so it felt like metaphorically building a ship in a bottle. Unfortunately by the 2000s the quality of floppy disks was atrocious. I had to go through three boxes (about 75 disks) to come up with a set of 21 Windows 95 install disks that had no write or read errors. Later I realized I could have done the job, and faster, using just two disks: one in the computer writing the disk images and one in laptop reading the disk (and then swap disks & overwrite with the next image). D'oh!
  - Varcht 8y ago
    oh man, the dreaded "click click, click click,...".
- einr 8y ago
  You think that's bad? Try Office 97 on 46 floppies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5o6NQmEA-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5o6NQmEA-8 (Yes, this was a real, official thing that was available from Microsoft)
- cschep 8y ago
  I installed this a few times! :D
bhaak 8y ago
Lemon lists 11 games for the Amiga that had more than 10 floppy disks. I owned 4 of them (Indy 4, Monkey Island 2, Flight of the Amazon Queen, and Beneath a Steel Sky). Luckily I had a hard disk. I don't even remember that BaSS had 15 disks! That must have taken a whole evening to install that thing. But it took only 12 MB on the hard disk although that was 10% of the whole disk capacity. Times sure have changed. http://www.lemonamiga.com/games/list.php?list_disks_option=more&list_disks=10 http://www.lemonamiga.com/games/list.php?list_disks_option=m...
- trollied 8y ago
  Beneath A Steel Sky was Amazing. Time to dust off the Amiga emulator :-)
  - enneff 8y ago
    The PC/Mac/Linux version with full audio is available for free: https://www.gog.com/game/beneath_a_steel_sky https://www.gog.com/game/beneath_a_steel_sky
    - Yuioup 8y ago
      Might as well mention that it can be downloaded for free here, including a bunch of other games that run on SCUMMVM: https://www.scummvm.org/games/ https://www.scummvm.org/games/
tracker1 8y ago
I remember autocad 12 + extensions on floppies... loading for a lab. Man that was the series of installs that just wouldn't end. IIRC win9x on floppy was almost as bad.
- pas 8y ago
  Win95 + Office, at least 50 floppies, and no FEC (forward error correction), so any one got damaged, and that's it.

Don't get us old guys started on the number of floppies...

by Varcht 8y ago

Don't get us old guys started on the number of floppies...

I still remember the 4 floppies of monkey island AND the inside joke when you find a stomp and the game starts to ask for the disk #22!

mrec 8y ago

Oh god yes. Back before hard disks (Amiga A500+ in my case), trying to play an N-floppy game on a 1-floppy system was... character-building.

bparsons 8y ago
I remember Microsoft Space Simulator had something like 11 discs to install.
- mrec 8y ago
  Yeah, but (presumably) at least you only had to install it once.

me551ah 8y ago

Still remember Windows 95 with 21 floppies.

gscott 8y ago
The difference between Win 3.1 and Win 95 was really life changing. The usability of Win 95 certainly sped up adoption of the Web by non-university/govt users.
peatmoss 8y ago
Early Linux distros downloaded via 14.4kbps modem for me. I... don’t even remember how many floppies that took. Lots as I recall.
- ansible 8y ago
  My first Linux distro was SLS, sporting Linux kernel version 0.99pl12, and it came on 15 5.25in floppies. I only had Usenet at the time, so I wasn't able to download it directly, and had to pay some random person to mail me the floppies. I was then setting up my own little TCP/IP network with a NFS server on my two machines, connected via coax Ethernet using NE2000 network cards. Thank goodness for CD-ROMs. Only a few years after that, I was able to just go into a computer store and just buy a single CD with Yggdrasil (or RH or Slackware) which made the whole process much easier. As long as your system could boot off of CD-ROM... sometimes you still needed to make a boot disk.
- tracker1 8y ago
  I had a friend that only used two floppies... one installing on a new computer, the other downloading the next disk... (isdn line) It actually worked out pretty well.
- me551ah 8y ago
  My first modem was 2.4kbps. Thankfully google didn't exist back then
phaedrus 8y ago
In 2002 I decided to install Windows 95 on a black & white Win3.1-based laptop, just for the heck of it. It had a one or two hundred megabyte hard drive, but only a floppy drive for I/O, so it felt like metaphorically building a ship in a bottle. Unfortunately by the 2000s the quality of floppy disks was atrocious. I had to go through three boxes (about 75 disks) to come up with a set of 21 Windows 95 install disks that had no write or read errors. Later I realized I could have done the job, and faster, using just two disks: one in the computer writing the disk images and one in laptop reading the disk (and then swap disks & overwrite with the next image). D'oh!
- Varcht 8y ago
  oh man, the dreaded "click click, click click,...".
einr 8y ago
You think that's bad? Try Office 97 on 46 floppies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5o6NQmEA-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5o6NQmEA-8 (Yes, this was a real, official thing that was available from Microsoft)
cschep 8y ago
I installed this a few times! :D

bhaak 8y ago

Lemon lists 11 games for the Amiga that had more than 10 floppy disks. I owned 4 of them (Indy 4, Monkey Island 2, Flight of the Amazon Queen, and Beneath a Steel Sky). Luckily I had a hard disk. I don't even remember that BaSS had 15 disks! That must have taken a whole evening to install that thing. But it took only 12 MB on the hard disk although that was 10% of the whole disk capacity. Times sure have changed. http://www.lemonamiga.com/games/list.php?list_disks_option=more&list_disks=10 http://www.lemonamiga.com/games/list.php?list_disks_option=m...

trollied 8y ago
Beneath A Steel Sky was Amazing. Time to dust off the Amiga emulator :-)
- enneff 8y ago
  The PC/Mac/Linux version with full audio is available for free: https://www.gog.com/game/beneath_a_steel_sky https://www.gog.com/game/beneath_a_steel_sky
  - Yuioup 8y ago
    Might as well mention that it can be downloaded for free here, including a bunch of other games that run on SCUMMVM: https://www.scummvm.org/games/ https://www.scummvm.org/games/

tracker1 8y ago

I remember autocad 12 + extensions on floppies... loading for a lab. Man that was the series of installs that just wouldn't end. IIRC win9x on floppy was almost as bad.

pas 8y ago
Win95 + Office, at least 50 floppies, and no FEC (forward error correction), so any one got damaged, and that's it.