Floppy Drives

[Callipygous]

i found them quite expensive. But they are re-writable.

 

the drives or the disks? if your paying more than $5 for a drive your being cheated at this point. as i said, mine was free. i never had to pay for disks because all my old programs used to come on them and they are all trash now so i dont feel bad about writing over them.

[Auk]

Yeah, I heard that the drive's are so cheap it's not worth making them since there is not profit for production lines.

[Klaynos]

It was really cheap so I got one, else I wouldn't have. In 9 months I've used it once (giving a friend a single small image file). My floppy drive in my old computer had *issues* you had to take the side off the case and remove it to use it, so I had the computer 2 years didn't use it once.

 

When I build my next one I don't see myself putting one in.

[Dave]

The one thing they are useful for (and I'll give them credit for this) is something like network booting. If you want a diskless system, it's usually a lot easier to have a floppy with the netboot code, rather than mess around with EEPROMs on the network cards.

[H2SO4]

the drives or the disks? if your paying more than $5 for a drive your being cheated at this point. as i said, mine was free. i never had to pay for disks because all my old programs used to come on them and they are all trash now so i dont feel bad about writing over them.

 

 

Ya, in longs drugs, i found a set of 4 floppy's, and was realy tempted to buy it to test my drive out and if i ever need them. Four of them were like 7 bucks. So i said screw it.

[TheProphet]

I haven't had it for years!

[5614]

Where is the multipole magnet?

It is the motor in the drive that rotates the data part of the disk. Is that clear? You know how floppy disks are made of a plastic case and the actual data part within the protective case, so that data part (when the disk is in use) is rotated... the multipole magnet is part of the motor that does this rotating. See here:

http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=8400

 

I can't find the multipole magnet...

It is possible that the motor in your floppy drive is a different type of motor that doesnt require a multipole magnet... but that's unlikely.

 

What is a multipole magnet?

A magnet with multiple polarities! See here:

http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=8530

[Edward]

I have encountered floppy drives that do no have multipole magnets the motor looks like a lin but in a circle which spins a disk in turn spinning the floppy.

[Auk]

Thanks for the information and the threads 5641. I"m gonna check to see if my floppy drive has a multipole magnet in the motor.

[Psion]

I don't have a floppy on my laptop but want one. Other than that, the other computers in this house have a floppy drive.

 

I think the floppy will be around for sometime until more people figure out FTP. The floppy is inexpensive, easy to put files on, and take on the go.

 

Almost anyone knows what it is, so if you lose one, they know what a floppy is.

 

I would use FTP, but turning in assignments with that doesn't work so well.

I like CD-RWs more than CD-Rs.

[joerdz]

I think floppies are going away as more and more people use flash drives.

 

Floppies are just not reliable, too many pieces moving. I have had various papers screwed up because of them.

Also, whenever the file in them is close to their capacity chances are that at some point it will be corrupted.

:::evil stare at floppies:::

[jcarlson]

Floppy drives are still required for loading RAID drivers when installing an OS on an unformatted pair of Hard Drives in a RAID array. Thats one of the only things I have used my Floppy drive for, now that i think about it...

[mezarashi]

Yes indeed, and floppy's are still required if you want to build robots like this:

http://www.generation5.org/content/2001/floppy.asp

[insane_alien]

Personally i like floppies and have a large stack of them as project backups. i also have a tape drive hiding in my loft.