The Mystery of the Mega-Selling Floppy Disk

osullish writes "People have been proclaiming the death of the floppy for years, yet millions are bought around the world. Who is buying them?"

Comments

Floppies

[Gizzmonic]

I know we buy them at my lab-they are necessary for controlling the software of our scintillation counter. That thing (no joke) is running DOS 2.0 under the hood! I'm sure there's lots of industrial equipment in small/noncompetitive markets that has never felt pressured to update. It's the same reason why we have so much $500,000 equipment running unbelievably crappy software.

Re:Floppies

[LWATCDR]

Actually there are some good reasons to use DOS for something like that.
Modern OSs are great and have all sorts of functionality that a lot of devices just don't need. They also have a lot of code and services which can cause you issues.
DOS is great for any device where you need a realtime single tasking OS.
You can do all you development on a PC and use PC debugging tools that you are used to using.
You see lots of CNC machines and such that use DOS for that reason.
Or look at it this way. Does the device you use work? Does it do what you need it to do?
If so then the software isn't crappy. Nothing sucks more than you replace a piece of software that works but isn't pretty with pretty bug ridden software.

Re:Floppies

[gnieboer]

...crappy software.

Would you really rather have that $500,000 piece of equipment running DOS 2.0 move to Windows Vista?

When was the last time your DOS 2.0 machine needed a security patch, or rebooted itself randomly, to for that matter did anything unexpected?
Simple... yes
Outdated... yes
Crappy... not so much.

Re:I have a lot on 3.5"

[opus_magnum]

I'd convert them while hardware was still working if I were you.

Re:Some hardware needs them

[JustNilt]

(Side note: This is why I read Slashdot. You have to wade through the muck but there're still nuggets of pure gold here and there.) Sorry ... on topic now:

1.It may not be using the standard floppy disk controler interface and may not be able to support that particular gizmo

Well, if you RTFL (I know, I know ....) then you'd have seen this:

The device connects to your existing power and data (ribbon) cables.

The soundless drive emulates your existing floppy drive to act as if the floppy drive was never removed. This drive will replace most any existing 720k/1.44MB capacity IBM format floppy drive or your money back. Do away with the painfully slow and obsolete floppy disks. Not only will this device work in PCs but, it will also work in machinery or devices that still use floppy drives. This device completely replaces the universal floppy drive of computerized system. If you are not certain this device will work in your equipment, then just ask! 1 Year Warranty. This device also emulates NON IBM type drives (TEAC, etc) and can also be setup as a DRIVE 0, DRIVE 1 configuration

Back to your points:

2.Are YOU going to be the one to tell the boss that the really really expensive piece of equipment has failed and that they cant get warranty service for it because of an unauthorized third party modification just so you dont need to keep floppy disks around?

I agree this is a good thing to consider. It may not always be a good idea even if it works. Definitely a YMMV solution.

3.What do you do about things that actually come on floppy disk (for example the manufacturer may ship new firmware on floppy that you insert and have the machine read). Yes you could reinstall the disk drive for those rare occasions (or find a way to make the floppytousb device work with a USB floppy so you can read the disk you need to) but that's a lot of work.

I wonder if one of the USB floppies would work. While it most likely wouldn't, I sort of like the Goldbergian aspect of running a floppy controller -> USB converter -> USB floppy drive emulator when needed. Hehe. In reality, I'd probably go with a floppy cable that supports 2 drives and run the floppy drive on one and the FloppytoUSB device on the other, just in case.

Nonetheless, this is quite an interesting device. I'll probably pick one up just to fiddle with. I'd love to have the option of USB sticks being available in such odd DOS environment for some clients.