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Even when using a FlashFloppy on a real computer (Amiga), it still feels better. You know where your data are. You know how and when it's being accessed. Also,

Even when using a FlashFloppy on a real computer (Amiga), it still feels better. You know where your data are. You know how and when it's being accessed. Also, it's interesting how an Amiga can boot off of a floppy faster than most modern computers can boot from an SSD. Floppies required people to be deliberate about loading files. It's a lesson I think most of us have forgotten now that a web browser can be a few hundred megabytes on disk. For the fun of it, not long ago I loaded all the DMF (1680K) floppy images for Windows 98 onto a USB stick for a FlashFloppy, booted the boot disk in PC-Task on an Amiga 3000 (with original m68030), then proceeded to install Windows 98. It's amazing that a modern device can emulate a floppy drive, that the Amiga could read the emulated floppy whatever the data rate (Amigas can't do HD floppy data rates, so Amigas cheated by using drives that could run at half the RPM), and could even support the 21 sectors per track that Windows 98 DMF disks use. Of course, it can be done with real floppy disks, too. Floppies are cool :)

Moru 3y ago
Yeah, you really know where your data is. I have fond memories of saving documents to a floppy, walking to the library to print only to find an empty floppy disk. Going back home, formatting it, saving again, doublechecking in a friends drive, still there. Going back to library, empty floppy. Going back home, floppy disk still empty. Had this happening several times with different floppies. Friends had the same problem. Write-lock didn't help a thing. It was less than 50% chance it would actually work. But it did work now and then.
- johnklos 3y ago
  That sounds like an MS-DOS problem. Some systems didn't properly detect disk changes, so if lots of buffers were configured, the system would just keep reading the same data out of memory. If your system is fine, and your data is on the floppy according to your friend's system, too, then the issue was most likely the library's system. That's not a floppy issue ;)
  - Moru 3y ago
    The problem was that the floppy was empty after the library computer touched it :-) Oh, and I had enough problems with floppies loosing data too. Especially the newer disks, the older ones were better but the new packages I could throw 10-20% of the floppies.
    - jcadam 3y ago
      Or... when you finally get to the part of the game that requires you to insert disk 7 of 7. And then you discover disk 7 is bad.
- eschneider 3y ago
  Either your machine or the machine at the library had bad head alignment. :/

Moru 3y ago

Yeah, you really know where your data is. I have fond memories of saving documents to a floppy, walking to the library to print only to find an empty floppy disk. Going back home, formatting it, saving again, doublechecking in a friends drive, still there. Going back to library, empty floppy. Going back home, floppy disk still empty. Had this happening several times with different floppies. Friends had the same problem. Write-lock didn't help a thing. It was less than 50% chance it would actually work. But it did work now and then.

johnklos 3y ago
That sounds like an MS-DOS problem. Some systems didn't properly detect disk changes, so if lots of buffers were configured, the system would just keep reading the same data out of memory. If your system is fine, and your data is on the floppy according to your friend's system, too, then the issue was most likely the library's system. That's not a floppy issue ;)
- Moru 3y ago
  The problem was that the floppy was empty after the library computer touched it :-) Oh, and I had enough problems with floppies loosing data too. Especially the newer disks, the older ones were better but the new packages I could throw 10-20% of the floppies.
  - jcadam 3y ago
    Or... when you finally get to the part of the game that requires you to insert disk 7 of 7. And then you discover disk 7 is bad.
eschneider 3y ago
Either your machine or the machine at the library had bad head alignment. :/