Floppy Discs; who still has and uses them?

[71-hour Ahmed]

I just got rid of my last three floppy discs today. It was slightly surreal as I discovered that my newish PC doesn't have a floppy drive, which I'd not even noticed for 6 months until today. I had to use the laptops USB floppy drive to get the data off them.

Anyway, this got me wondering, given that I only really stopped using them 2 - 3 years ago, who else still has floppy discs and drives, and who is still using them (or can admit to it, you 19th Century luddites you! )?

I'd be really impressed if anyone still has one of those 5 1/4" discs they had when I was a child.

[Husar]

Haven't used them since my floppy disc drive broke many years ago.

[Tran]

I still have them, but never use them for a long time...okay, maybe not that long, but they're no more than "antique stuff" now

[Caius]

I dont use floppy disks, but I have a fd drive.

[caravel]

I still have quite a few, including Win95 on 3 1/2" floppies. I never use them of course but have never thrown them away. I did use floppies quite a bit in my last job but that was the exception. I haven't used any 5 /14" floppies or 3 1/2" 720KB (Double Density) since about '94. Quite a bit before my time there were the 8" floppies which I've only seen in college lectures.

There are occasions where you simply need floppies, such as booting from one to flash a BIOS or something similar.

[Xiahou]

Still have them, rarely use them. Usually, if I'm troubleshooting or installing I might need to use one. I probably haven't actually bought a new floppy disc in close to 10 years.

[AntiochusIII]

Still have them; sometimes use them. I didn't bother to get flash drives and these things are more convenient than CD's or DVD's for frequent small-scale use like transferring a word document.

The thing that really killed floppy is flash drives though: same convenience much larger capacity. CD/DVD is annoying.

I'm actually quite annoyed those new pre-made computers don't have them anymore -- cheap bastards -- I personally don't buy pre-made computers but my family does.

[sapi]

Don't even have a floppy drive on this PC

[darkragnar]

Still have them; sometimes use them. I didn't bother to get flash drives and these things are more convenient than CD's or DVD's for frequent small-scale use like transferring a word document.

The thing that really killed floppy is flash drives though: same convenience much larger capacity. CD/DVD is annoying.

I'm actually quite annoyed those new pre-made computers don't have them anymore -- cheap bastards -- I personally don't buy pre-made computers but my family does.

Ah you forgot a bigger issue with floppy drives mate, they are as reliable as Mata Hari when it comes to storing stuff,especially here in India where there is a lot of dust floppy just get corrputed if you take them outside, i had floppy's crash on me after 3 min of exposure to the enivronment , not good if you want to take a important document to college or school.


as for using them, i think use one floopy that has the drivers for my keyboard whenever i format my disk.

USB is the way to go for me.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

I've got about twenty hiding in my PC's cabinet, but I haven't used them since they damaged a large image file I wanted to move from my old PC to my new PC (six/seven years ago). They were pretty good for small files, but hopeless for anything large such as publisher files and pictures. I don't think I'll ever miss them.

[The Spartan (Returns)]

My computer doesn't have a floppy disk drive.

[Whacker]

Personally I haven't used them regularly since... early/mid 90's I want to say. I stopped using/removed floppy drives from my own PC's about 2000 or so, and the only real interaction I had with them up until lately was through mom who works at a Uni. Thankfully they've migrated for the most part the USB keys as of 2 years or so ago. I've still got hundreds stashed away in my cabinet up here, just for old time's sake. I wonder how many of them are still actually good... This was a funny trip down memory lane.

[Beirut]

Apparently I don't have one because the guy forgot to install it on my new PC but remembered to include it on the bill. Ten bucks.