Do you think we will get back drive a: and b:

[Char Jackson]

In message <[email protected]>, Char Jackson

True! (Or should I say guilty? ) I've only skimmed it because it's
been about people trying to justify the continued usage of floppy
disks, for cryin' out loud! ;-)

Since you've clearly decided to close your mind on the subject, you
might as well stop reading the thread. [Maybe someone'll start to wonder
why they should continue using Char Jackson ... (-:]

Ok, so humor and honesty didn't work. Carry on, then.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

On Sat, 18 Feb 2012 00:31:17 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"

In message <[email protected]>, Char Jackson

No doubt. But you haven't read this thread very carefully:

True! (Or should I say guilty? ) I've only skimmed it because it's
been about people trying to justify the continued usage of floppy
disks, for cryin' out loud! ;-)

Since you've clearly decided to close your mind on the subject, you
might as well stop reading the thread. [Maybe someone'll start to wonder
why they should continue using Char Jackson ... (-:]

Ok, so humor and honesty didn't work. Carry on, then.

In an effort to make you feel a bit better:

I have a USB floppy drive that I got essentially free ($50 with $50
rebate, but I paid sales tax) with a laptop I bought a few years/a few
laptops ago, and I carry it with me when I travel.

It's been a few years since I used it, however.

If the above doesn't make you feel better, maybe it will make J. P.
Gilliver feel better.

If that doesn't work, I'll try to cheer up someone else in the thread.
Any volunteers?

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

On Sat, 18 Feb 2012 00:31:17 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"

In message <[email protected]>, Char
[]
No doubt. But you haven't read this thread very carefully:
True! (Or should I say guilty? ) I've only skimmed it because
it's
been about people trying to justify the continued usage of floppy
disks, for cryin' out loud! ;-)

Since you've clearly decided to close your mind on the subject, you
might as well stop reading the thread. [Maybe someone'll start to
wonder why they should continue using Char Jackson ... (-:]

Ok, so humor and honesty didn't work. Carry on, then.

Sorry, you pressed my button.

In an effort to make you feel a bit better:

I have a USB floppy drive that I got essentially free ($50 with $50
rebate, but I paid sales tax) with a laptop I bought a few years/a few
laptops ago, and I carry it with me when I travel.

It's been a few years since I used it, however.

If the above doesn't make you feel better, maybe it will make J. P.
Gilliver feel better.

As usual, GEB brings sanity with a smile. (My name's John, BTW.)

If that doesn't work, I'll try to cheer up someone else in the thread.
Any volunteers?

(-:

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

In message <[email protected]>, Char Jackson
[]
No doubt. But you haven't read this thread very carefully:
True! (Or should I say guilty? ) I've only skimmed it because it's
been about people trying to justify the continued usage of floppy
disks, for cryin' out loud! ;-)

Since you've clearly decided to close your mind on the subject, you might
as well stop reading the thread. [Maybe someone'll start to wonder why
they should continue using Char Jackson ... (-:]

Ok, so humor and honesty didn't work. Carry on, then.

Sorry, you pressed my button.

As usual, GEB brings sanity with a smile. (My name's John, BTW.)
(-:

I wasn't so sure that saying John was appropriate, but in future I'll
rethink that. There is some confusion in my mind about what is polite
in these exchanges.

Thanks for the remark about sanity, but please be aware that so far
today I've gotten really sarcastic - or worse - in a couple of cases. I
don't recall if you're among my victims

I also don't recall which NGs were victimized by me today, but dinner
is about to be ready (here, at least), so I won't look.

 

[Ken Blake]

My wife

No big deal of course, but with your having a name like "Char" that I
had never seen before, I was curious about what sex you were. You just
answered that question.

and I shared an office for a couple of years and the way it
was set up had us sitting back to back, facing away from each other.
It was too much trouble to turn around, so we would simply IM each
other, and by extension, we'd use IM if we needed to send something to
one another, like pictures, web links, etc.

These days we have separate offices, but we still use IM to stay in
touch. Email is too slow in this age of instant gratification.

For years now, my wife and have shared the same room we call the
"office" in our home. We sit side by side. We never IM, but we often
use e-mail to send each other things like URLs.

Is e-mail too slow? It may not be the fastest way, but it's more than
adequate for what we send. Often I'll send her a message when she's
not even at her desk. When she returns, it's there.

 

[Ken Blake]

I have a USB floppy drive that I got essentially free ($50 with $50
rebate, but I paid sales tax) with a laptop I bought a few years/a few
laptops ago, and I carry it with me when I travel.

It's been a few years since I used it, however.

Just curious--why when you travel? I would think that when you are
traveling, you are *least* likely to need/want to use a floppy drive.
And if you were like me, you would want to keep the weight down and
carry as little as possible.

My laptop (an EEE netbook) has no DVD/CD drive, but I have a USB one
for using with it--but only at home. I don't take it when traveling.

 

[Wolf K]

BTW, neither of my usual sources of office supplies stock floppies
anymore. You can occasionally find some at value Village, though.

I just tried the first office supplies company that came to mind, and
they have them:
http://www.staples.co.uk/3-5-floppy-disks-1-44mb-10-pack?r=se
(Not cheap, though!). [Not that that's a problem for us - we've been
using the same ones for ages.]

Interesting: I guess there's still a market for 3.5" diskettes in the
UK. Not here, though: Staples is one of my usual sources.

Wolf K.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

On Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:26:22 -0800, Gene E. Bloch



Just curious--why when you travel? I would think that when you are
traveling, you are *least* likely to need/want to use a floppy drive.
And if you were like me, you would want to keep the weight down and
carry as little as possible.

My laptop (an EEE netbook) has no DVD/CD drive, but I have a USB one
for using with it--but only at home. I don't take it when traveling.

It's in a small case with the USB DVD burner, and in the trunk of the
car it's no burden.

After all, one never knows when one might need a floppy drive

 

[Ken Blake]

It's in a small case with the USB DVD burner, and in the trunk of the
car it's no burden.

Ah, OK. After I sent the above, it occurred to me that when you said
"travel," you probably mean by car. But most of my traveling is by
plane, so I never want to carry something I don't need.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

BTW, neither of my usual sources of office supplies stock floppies
anymore. You can occasionally find some at value Village, though.

I just tried the first office supplies company that came to mind, and
they have them:
http://www.staples.co.uk/3-5-floppy-disks-1-44mb-10-pack?r=se
(Not cheap, though!). [Not that that's a problem for us - we've been
using the same ones for ages.]

Interesting: I guess there's still a market for 3.5" diskettes in the UK. Not
here, though: Staples is one of my usual sources.

Wolf K.

For fun, I looked for floppies in several places.

Staples, Fry's, Office Max: looks like none available

Amazon, Office Depot: they have them, sometimes at surprisingly high
and sometimes at surprisingly low prices.

I'm in the US.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

On Sat, 18 Feb 2012 14:13:47 -0800, Gene E. Bloch


Ah, OK. After I sent the above, it occurred to me that when you said
"travel," you probably mean by car. But most of my traveling is by
plane, so I never want to carry something I don't need.

Yes to all that.

An upconing trip is to a wedding, and if I decide to go by plane, I'll
skip the floppy drive and the DVD drive - and maybe the netbook too

 

[John Williamson]

Yes to all that.

An upconing trip is to a wedding, and if I decide to go by plane, I'll
skip the floppy drive and the DVD drive - and maybe the netbook too

Heathen. How are you planning to post the embarassing pictures of the
bride and groom on Facebook without a computer? ;-)

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Heathen. How are you planning to post the embarassing pictures of the bride
and groom on Facebook without a computer? ;-)

Delayed gratification ;-)

 

[Char Jackson]

Heathen. How are you planning to post the embarassing pictures of the
bride and groom on Facebook without a computer? ;-)

Modern smart phones can take photos and video and post it to Facebook
or Youtube with a single virtual click. Using a separate computer is
so three years ago. ;-)

 

[DanS]

In message <[email protected]>,

True! (Or should I say guilty? ) I've only skimmed it
because it's been about people trying to justify the
continued usage of floppy disks, for cryin' out loud! ;-)

Since you've clearly decided to close your mind on the
subject, you might as well stop reading the thread. [Maybe
someone'll start to wonder why they should continue using
Char Jackson ... (-:]

To put it simply: we have equipment that we occasionally
need to extract a small file from. The equipment has a
floppy drive. Networking the equipment isn't on the cards
(let us say for security reasons - that's certainly been
mentioned as one of the reasons). We have a USB floppy
drive on our network machine. The equipment is designed for
the specific task it does (support the testing and
trouble-shooting of a particular product).

Sure, we could upgrade the equipment to an operating system
that could support USB, including rewriting at least some
of the specially-written software. But how would this
benefit us? (To do so - and get the upgraded hardware and
software, and the procedures for using it that would have
to be rewritten, all approved, quite possibly by the
customer as well as our own people - would cost a
significant amount. In fact it's that which would dominate
the cost, rather than that of just the equipment.) I should
say that the supported product, though quite modern
technology, is no longer in manufacture, but we have a
contract to support (and to some extent upgrade) it.

So, the whole point of the story is you use floppies because
that that only hardware available on said machine.

(That's akin to me saying I only use gasoline in my truck.)

That's obviously a good reason to, but, the big question
remains is if you had a choice of using floppy discs, or a USB
drive, would you stick with floppy disks?

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <[email protected]>,

[]
So, the whole point of the story is you use floppies because
that that only hardware available on said machine.

(That's akin to me saying I only use gasoline in my truck.)

That's obviously a good reason to, but, the big question
remains is if you had a choice of using floppy discs, or a USB
drive, would you stick with floppy disks?

Almost certainly not. It was your use of the phrase "trying to justify"
that bugged me, as if - well, you were - you were making out that we're
weird. I think it being the only option is adequate justification (-:.I say almost certainly not - but only almost; the main disadvantage I
see is the fact that it's a mechanical system, and therefore slow. But
the limited capacity is _not_ a problem.(Did you know your post had all those blank lines on the end?)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

The hypothalamus is one of the most important parts of the brain, involved in
many kinds of motivation, among other functions. The hypothalamus controls the
"Four F's": fighting, fleeing, feeding, and mating. -Heard in a neuropsychology
classroom

 

[Char Jackson]

In message <[email protected]>,
[]
No doubt. But you haven't read this thread very carefully:

True! (Or should I say guilty? ) I've only skimmed it
because it's been about people trying to justify the
continued usage of floppy disks, for cryin' out loud! ;-)

[]
So, the whole point of the story is you use floppies because
that that only hardware available on said machine.

(That's akin to me saying I only use gasoline in my truck.)

That's obviously a good reason to, but, the big question
remains is if you had a choice of using floppy discs, or a USB
drive, would you stick with floppy disks?

Almost certainly not. It was your use of the phrase "trying to justify"
that bugged me, as if - well, you were - you were making out that we're
weird. I think it being the only option is adequate justification (-:.

That was me who used the "trying to justify" phrase. It probably
wasn't my best choice of words.

 

[Paul]

While I agree that floppy disks aren’t used all that much any more, they
certainly aren’t dead. I use a floppy every morning to boot my old IBM
5150 PC. Yeah, the original IBM dinosaur to be sure, but it is still
functioning after 30 years of operation, and those 5.25†diskettes are
getting more difficult to find new. But they’re still out there. So,
rare, yes; dead, not quite, but slipping on the proverbial banana peel.

They make floppy emulators. AS long as you've made images of the floppies,
even if the drives or media go out of style, you could still "fake it".

http://www.floppyemulator.com/

Paul

 

[Rob]

They make floppy emulators. AS long as you've made images of the floppies,
even if the drives or media go out of style, you could still "fake it".

http://www.floppyemulator.com/

Paul

BTW There are a couple of other drive letters reserved as well.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

While I agree that floppy disks aren’t used all that much any more,
they certainly aren’t dead. I use a floppy every morning to boot
my old IBM 5150 PC. Yeah, the original IBM dinosaur to be sure, but
it is still functioning after 30 years of operation, and those 5.25â€

[/QUOTE]

Well, they were built to stand a small explosion, weren't they!

I'm curious: if you're booting it every morning, that suggests you're
still actually using it for something: what? A server, firewall, or
something? Controlling hardware?

They make floppy emulators. AS long as you've made images of the floppies,
even if the drives or media go out of style, you could still "fake it".

http://www.floppyemulator.com/

Paul

At a price - $385 - though! You'd have to have a _real_ need to go for
that. (Or some old ones at a "sale" price of $270.)
[Someone said some other letters are "reserved" - which and why? I'm
guessing "Q" for that version of Office I've heard of, which sounds like
something definitely to be avoided.]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Today, I dare say more people know who starred as /The Vicar of Dibley/ than
know the name of the vicar of their local parish. - Clive Anderson, Radio
Times 15-21 January 2011.