5 ms·
3.5mm floppies combined a lot of factors that appealed to me. They were cheap enough you could give one to someone without wanting it back, they were contained
by Causality1 7y ago
3.5mm floppies combined a lot of factors that appealed to me. They were cheap enough you could give one to someone without wanting it back, they were contained entirely within the computer so no danger of breaking it off if you leave it in there too long. Unlike CDs they were rewritable and unlike CDRWs they worked properly no matter what PC I was writing or reading from. Not to mention the thoroughly satisfying "chunk" sound when popped into a drive. Network file transfers will never have that "shove the data right into the computer, bam!" feeling.
- benj111 7y ago"3.5mm" Careful with your units there. http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric.02/ http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric.02/
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Causality1 7y agoDrat. Uh, I was referencing it by, uh, its thickness dimension. Yeah, that's what I was doing, yes sir.
- benj111 7y agoAh yes, I forgot it was a Euro American joint venture, thus measurements are equally split between metric and imperial. Fun fact, the spring rate for the slidy thing (technical term) is measured in lb m/in cm!
- enneff 7y agoThere was also the tactile feeling of flipping through a stack of floppies looking for one specific disk. Now that everything is so high capacity, you almost never have to physically search for data. Of course the modern way is superior in almost every way, except it was a kind of wonderful sensation holding a disk box full of your stuff.
- C1sc0cat 7y agoNot so much fun when you where doing an Oracle Forms client side app, I recall having to use 13 or 14 floppy's in the correct order before I could even install that actual client side application.
- bitwize 7y agoFloppies had richer, warmer bits, man. The bits coming off USB drives are cold, tinny, and mechanical by comparison.
- cm2187 7y agoPlus the warm sentiment of relief when you managed to read the data off the disk when you were lucky enough it wasn't corrupted!
- nonesuchluck 7y agoSurprisingly, unlike the pennies-per-diskette garbage of the late 90s, Sony 3.5 disks from the 80s were stiffer, heavier, and massively more reliable. I have some 800k Mac disks that still read perfectly well. Probably other brands as well, but I was always impressed with Sony media from that era.
- Crinus 7y agoUSB flash drives are the modern floppies really. You can get one with a few GBs for literally pennies to the point where you can even get some "promotional" flash drives for free, similar to how in the past people gave out "promotional" (writing) pens for free. On the high end side you can have flash drives with as high as 2TB of storage (though the only one i've found is a bit bulky and the more regular sized one has "only" 1TB of storage). No satisfying chunk sound though :-P.
- theandrewbailey 7y agoNo sound, but you get USB superposition in exchange. In 50 years, people will gather in nursing homes and reminisce about how bad type-A was.
- jharger 7y agoI'm curious what causes that strange phenomenon. You had a 50-50 chance to get it right, but it's the wrong way almost every time.
- theandrewbailey 7y agoBad angle or not enough force, based on how many times it worked the third time.
- 2a96eb7d685a49c 7y agoA 50 pack of 4 GB flash drives is over $100 on Amazon[0]. A 50 pack of DVD-RW is under $50.[1] [0] https://www.amazon.com/TOPSELL-Swivel-Memory-Drives-50/dp/B01MD13XJ4/ https://www.amazon.com/TOPSELL-Swivel-Memory-Drives-50/dp/B0... [1] https://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-95213-Optical-Disc-White/dp/B000MNOXCQ/ https://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-95213-Optical-Disc-White/dp/...
- fsiefken 7y agoThat's why the Oculus VR intro with the floppy's is also so nice, it has a nice haptic/tactile feel to it.
- Causality1 7y agoAfter a year and a half of owning an Oculus Touch, replaying that intro is still more fun than any other experience I've had on it.