And how old are you?

[csquared]

Cleaning up the office/bedroom and threw out this.


So, how old are you?

[mjr]

Old enough to know what those are. ;-)

[dalesys]

5.25"? Not all that old! I kluged an interface to replace a Singer hard drive (made for the Minuteman missile ) with an 8" single-sided single-density floppy drive for the lighting controller for Samford University in Homewood, Alabama...

[Ironclad Alibi]

Old enough to still have a whole bunch of them, and the computers to run them.

I have about 120 programs on 5¼ floppies.
I have about 100 programs on 3½ floppies, although about 2 dozen of those duplicate the 5¼ floppies.
I have about 200 programs on CD.
And an uncounted number of downloaded programs.
I will admit most of those programs are games.

Like a true gamer, I have only played about a quarter of them.

[csquared]

My 3½s were on a bookcase that needed to get moved last year. Those got pitched a while back.

In my 5¼s, I had a full copy of 386-IX from Interactive Systems. I couldn't find the copy of PC-IX. My boss, back at the time, helped Interactive port SVR3 to 8086.

5.25"? Not all that old! I kluged an interface to replace a Singer hard drive (made for the Minuteman missile ) with an 8" single-sided single-density floppy drive for the lighting controller for Samford University in Homewood, Alabama...

I use to sell those.

[Kristev]

I know what those are. We didn't get a 'modern' computer until about 1996, making do with an older one from the 80's until then.

[dalesys]

I'm old enough to remember the behemoth 8" discs that came BEFORE those. They held a truly pitiable amount of data, but at the time it seemed immense.

The Singer hard disk I mentioned held *less* data than the first generation *" floppies! It had a read/write head for each track.

[EricKei]

I had to get rid of my half-dozen boxes of 3.5" floppies when I moved. I stopped using 5 1/4"s once I no longer had a system that could use them. I never used 8-inchers personally (tho I did have more than one system that used cassette tapes), tho I did work at a place circa 2000AD that still had all of their disks going back to the 8-inchers, despite them not having any systems capable ot reading them, either. Sadly, they shot down my idea of stringing them up as a mobile on the ceiling.

[Kit-Ginevra]

Ooh I recognize what those are! I believe the one pictured is a 'coat-hanger' used for hanging up clothes

[EricKei]

Kit - You must be careful to never leave two or more such devices alone in a closed area; they will multiply rapidly once they realize that they will not be bothered.

[taxguykarl]

Having worked in IT (mainly as a CAD supervisor) since the early '90's; I easily recognized those and have a bunch to deal with myself.

[Arcus]

I have one of those left and a single computer that can still read them. I'm slowly moving everything to modern storage types

[dalesys]

What's more, the parents and offspring will meld into one giant wire beast that is very, very difficult to deal with as it will grab anything that comes within its reach and pull it into the tangle. Wire cutters are usually the required solution, though caution is required as the beast will lash out randomly while it is being dismembered.

And if not dismembered in time the wire beast will morph into the adult form, a shopping trolley, and trundle you off to the wonders of Mall Purchase Night!
(kudos to Terry Pratchett & Rick Cook)

[Ironclad Alibi]

The trick to keeping those beasts from multiplying is to get plastic covered ones. Condoms do work.

[MadMike]

My first computer was a TRS-80 Color Computer, which I still have, along with a bunch of those floppies. Everything still works, or it did 11-12 years ago, when my son found it and hooked it up out of curiosity. Even all the old floppies still worked, except for one that would randomly put out "I/O ERRORS", but if I remember correctly that particular disc never worked right. He ended up taking it to one of his computer classes for show and tell.

When I got my first PC back in 1995, I was introduced to the 3 1/2 floppies, but I don't think I ever actually had to buy any. Companies like AOL were constantly sending them out, and I'd just reformat and reuse them.