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The Mystery of the Mega-Selling Floppy Disk

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-keep-mine-in-a-metal-toolbox dept.

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

4 of 558 comments (clear)

  1. Floppies by Gizzmonic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    (-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
    1. Re:Floppies by LWATCDR · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    2. Re:Floppies by gnieboer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ...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      Outdated...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.

  2. Re:I have a lot on 3.5" by opus_magnum · · Score: 5, Insightful

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