3 ms·
Where are floppy disks today? Planes, trains, and all these other places
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- keiferski 2y agoI played one of the older Deus Ex games a few months ago, and a minor plot point that's stuck with me is when a character hides data by storing it in a floppy disk, as (in the future world of the game) floppy readers have become so obsolete that they are rare antiques. I liked that idea: security via nearly-unreadable format. And it made me wonder what an equivalent would be today. Punch cards, maybe?
- the_third_wave 2y agoPunch cards are easy to read even without card readers, just when the thing and use OCR (optical card reader) software. You're probably best of using an obsolete helical scan tape format since those tapes are hard to read even between devices, let alone when no drive can be found.
- keiferski 2y agoInteresting, thanks for the answer.
- skissane 2y ago8-inch floppies: when was the last time you saw an 8-inch floppy drive? Finding old computers with 3.5-inch and even 5.25-inch floppy drives is much easier Obscure non-standard floppy formats such as 3-inch ZIP disks, LS-120, magneto-optical So many tape drive formats over the decades, some are very rare/obscure IBM 3363 WORM discs (optical discs, same basic concept as CD-R but older than them and non-standard) UDO/UDO2 optical disks HD DVD (to BluRay what VHS was to Betamax) LV-ROM and LD-ROM (storing computer data on LaserDiscs)
- lencastre 2y agoAlso the only way to load and save protocols in old microtunneling machines’ control containers.