Subj : Re: floppy disks
To   : Ogg
From : boraxman
Date : Tue Apr 29 2025 10:40 am

-=> Ogg wrote to boraxman <=-

 Og> Hello boraxman!

 Og>> Not me:
 Og>> http://kolico.ca/fidonet/echos/win95/#diskettes

 b> Wow...  I've still got a LOT of disks, mostly 1.44M, but
 b> some 1.2M and a couple of disk boxes of 360K floppies from
 b> when I had an XT.  The 1.44M disks are kind of dying, but
 b> the 5 1/4 inch disks, mostly holding up well, despite being
 b> 30+ years old.

 Og> I actually still have some unused, still sealed, sets of 1.44M
 Og> disks. I probably should try to sell them.

 Og> I also have some kept in the off chance that I would like to
 Og> re-visit their contents.  But now many years later, there is
 Og> probably no point.

 Og> Even the disassemblying for recycling seems to be no point.
 Og> Black coloured plastic is not considered recyclable. And the
 Og> lint-free liner is minimal for a fire-starter.


 b> Would be good if you could still buy new disks and drives,
 b> just for the thrill of it.

 Og> It could bring some memories back, but I wouldn't call it a
 Og> thrill.  ;)  I might come across some license-keys or something
 Og> though - that would be amusing.

I had a box of 5 1/4" DD/DS disks that I bought from a thrift store, mabe 15
years ago?  They were still in the original shrink wrap.  I conssidered selling
them, but I wasn't that hard up for cash that the small amount I would have
made
was worth it.  It cost me a few bucks, I could have made enough to buy
something
good to eat, but I ended up using them for my Commodore 64.  Didn't want to
overwrite my other disks.

What was interesting about floppies was they could be formatted to different
capacities.  There was this DOS program called 2M that was pretty cool that let
you format disks to greater capacities, by putting more sectors per tracks, and
more tracks.  You could get over 800K on a 5 1/4" DS/DD diskette, and up to
1.8M
on the 1.44 M disks.

There was something we've lost not having disks.  Having a box of disks which
were labelled, that you could browse through.  That you could see what was on
them, without having to actually use the computer and look.  Just flick through
and browse.  You could share them with friends, repurpose them.  Browse through
the disks at the computer swap meet, then the physical experience of loading it
in.  IT just mad things a but more "Human", if that makes sense.

CD's kind of did the same thing a bit, but they've falled out of favour now
too.
Maybe something similar will be reinvented again, or come back, the way thet
vinyl has come back, and that music CD's are kind of coming back, or at least,
people are saying they're coming back.


.... BoraxMan
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