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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsMy company uses a floppy disk symbol to save your work.
Isn't that cute? Does anyone under the age of 25 even know what a floppy disk is? Maybe they teach about it in history class. 😆 🤣
lapfog_1
(29,223 posts)the symbols for HDDs either. Even the term "hard drive" or "disk drive" will go away.
eventually, the concept of external detachable storage ( of any kind ) may go away. There will be cloud storage and local memory ( persistent memory ). Those two will be around ( because of latency and physics until we extend quantum memory from wherever we are located to where some other information is kept.
randr
(12,414 posts)Basic LA
(2,047 posts)Then the smaller ones encased in plastic came along, like the ubiquitous symbol shown above.
Hope I'm recalling this correctly.
I am that old, lol. I remember tape drive and punch cards.
Basic LA
(2,047 posts)We've been around!
JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,364 posts)... and replace them with our third-shift hard disks. The removed disks were then covered with something that looks like a cake dish cover.
The next task was to plan where we would find lunch at 3:30am. There weren't that many places to choose from.
rsdsharp
(9,197 posts)They used large floppy discs about 12.
intheflow
(28,501 posts)I used different computers for different jobs. Word processing was done on an IBM Selectric typewriter and we could send out reams of form letters because it could store up to something like 120 words in its memory. We oohed and aahed over that marvel! 😂
I cant remember what I did on the Wang and Apple computers (first job, short-lived due to extremely pervy boss), only that different computations had to be done on entirely different machines, and, yes, we backed it all up on the floppies that could double as fans in the summer.
rsdsharp
(9,197 posts)After a couple years the firm bought a couple of Facit typewriters that had storage similar to what you describe.
In the early 90s, everybody got desktop computers, including the attorneys except for the secretary of one of the senior partners. She was about a year from retirement, and refused to use a computer.
EverHopeful
(188 posts)because of the sound they made when you ran over them with your chair. Didn't catch on, rather like my calling "autocorrect" "autocorrupt" hasn't caught on.
AllaN01Bear
(18,387 posts)some du member has a hard floppy for their sig pic. i got a couple of hard ( 114 mb i think)
Basic LA
(2,047 posts)The little 'hard floppies' were a big advancement.
I worked with 8 single-sided floppy disks way long ago. Had to boot up with the System disk, take it out and put in another disk to work on your documents and save them might need to put the system disk back in for other functions ..there was a lot of disk swapping going on then, miracle of miracles, double-sided, double-density came out! 4X the capacity!
Basic LA
(2,047 posts)Sadly, my computer "skills" seem never to have advanced along with the technology.
ProfessorGAC
(65,168 posts)I used early computers with both sizes.
Here's the wiki page on the history of those media.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk#:~:text=The%20first%20commercial%20floppy%20disks,1972%20by%20Memorex%20and%20others.
Basic LA
(2,047 posts)Permanut
(5,637 posts)The 5 1/4" disks.
PufPuf23
(8,836 posts)Bought my first pc in 1985 and also bought WordPerfect, Lotus123, and DBase.
Bought an Everex Step 386 in 87 or 88 with a 200 MB hard drive. The HD cost almost $2000 alone.
OnDoutside
(19,970 posts)Lunabell
(6,105 posts)I did not inherit my dad's math gene. That's why I'm a nurse and not a veterinarian. So much math just to treat animals.
AllaN01Bear
(18,387 posts)lastlib
(23,286 posts)Still have the slide rule I got for my 16th birthday (other kids got a car for their 16th--I got a slide rule.......and was actually happy about it!) Had to make a new leather case for it last year--the old one was coming apart. I don't use it much--but I can still solve triangles on it faster than I can look up an app online and type in info. In high school, I won a slide-rule competition against students from about two dozen other schools. I was pretty dog-gone good with it!
Some 30-somethings at work a few years ago had never seen one, so I had to bring it in and demonstrate it. They were mildly amused.
ProfessorGAC
(65,168 posts)Might have used it in my 1st year of college. "Affordable calculators came out around that time, including scientific versions. So, I don't exactly remember when I got my first one.
But, we used them extensively in HS.
The math teachers had 4 foot versions hanging over the chalkboard.
They looked like this.
https://trtradingcompany.com/product/huge-4-pickett-american-quality-slide-rule/
Elessar Zappa
(14,047 posts)Its not essential knowledge.
SWBTATTReg
(22,166 posts)some, so as I was reading your email/text, I wondered. I guess that you still can buy them, but I've still stocked up on them pretty well.
And you're probably right, does the younger generation even know what these are, if they ever even seen a floppy disc.
Lunabell
(6,105 posts)I don't think they even put cd players in cars anymore. Everything is streaming now. I can still hear the dial up screech we used to get when signing on to the internet. 😆
SWBTATTReg
(22,166 posts)kept the floppy disc drive in my computer when I had it built, was that I'm always double and triple ensuring that I can get into my system, do things should something happen to my computer, hence the floppy disc drive. Of course I have the disc drive too, but they wondered when I had them build the system years ago why I would want this feature (the floppy drive) still? Of course, I told them of my desire to have multiple entryways/access on my computer for any possible thing that may happen.
Next time I go to Office Depot, Office Max, I'll look to see if they still have the discs (floppy).
getagrip_already
(14,837 posts)$30/10.
You can still buy them and the readers/drives though. These are the more modern hard plastic 3.5" ones. I didn't look for the 5" version.
Response to SWBTATTReg (Reply #5)
AllaN01Bear This message was self-deleted by its author.
AllaN01Bear
(18,387 posts)lpbk2713
(42,766 posts)Even though I haven't had a computer with a floppy drive for twenty years or more.
Although I must say I do have an external floppy drive with a USB connector.
So I could use a floppy disc if I had to.
Lunabell
(6,105 posts)You may have a fortune to leave your grandkids! 😆
JoseBalow
(2,455 posts)JoseBalow
(2,455 posts)It was a Wang (no offense!) that used rolls of punched paper tape.
I've never even heard of this one.
JoseBalow
(2,455 posts)you would feed in a roll of perforated paper tape. The bigger the program, the bigger the roll of tape. It could get quite unwieldy and cumbersome, but still more practical that a stack of cards.
That is ancient!
AllaN01Bear
(18,387 posts)lastlib
(23,286 posts)we saved/loaded our programs to/from paper tapes. You had to be one of the FORTRAN kids to use the 8" floppies.....
SWBTATTReg
(22,166 posts)Basic, Assembler, Pascal, SAS, Cobol, PL1, etc. And you had to know multiple languages too, in order to read some magnetic tapes, e.g., Assembler to read some mag. tapes.
ProfessorGAC
(65,168 posts)In HS, there was a dumb terminal connected to a local university's mainframe.
We saved our work to paper tape like that. I took that short course my 3rd year of HS. I don't have the faintest idea what I tried to program.
Hermit-The-Prog
(33,414 posts)No documentation and no idea about the interface on it, though. It just collects dust in my garage.
JoseBalow
(2,455 posts)I have seen them connected to old typewriters, like a kind of word processor I guess. I'm not sure how interchangeable it would be, or if you could even re-adapt it from one device to another. Maybe some sort of modified HAL I suppose, not my field of expertise at all.
Danascot
(4,694 posts)use the floppy disk symbol for save. It's in the upper left corner and small.
Per wikipedia: The retail floppy disk version of Windows 95 came on 13 DMF formatted floppy disks, while OSR 2.1 doubled the floppy count to 26.
kimbutgar
(21,188 posts)Because she has nothing to use them on! I actually found a 45 size floppy disc also!
AllaN01Bear
(18,387 posts)this was as of the year 2000. this was for a reunion and to talk to the most seinior members of the fam. my late mom and aunt. the matriarchs . sook bay canada.
LoisB
(7,231 posts)I'm old.
underpants
(182,879 posts)What pain in the ass.
AllaN01Bear
(18,387 posts)hunter
(38,326 posts)The bells were for big news, the sort they'd interrupt television and radio for. We'd all freeze, like at the beginning of an earthquake, wondering if the bells were signaling the end of the world, the missiles launched, time to jump under our desks and kiss our asses good-bye.
Just like most earthquakes, the moment quickly passed.as someone called out the story, the death of some famous person, whatever...
Basic LA
(2,047 posts)I was an operator for RCA Global Communications in SanFran, and then at Western Union headquarters in Downtown L.A.
Shermann
(7,430 posts)The 8" didn't make much inroads there and were quickly replaced. The 3 1/2" standard replaced that just as quickly. Anybody who used the 5 1/4" to any significant degree probably remembers losing data. They were, well, floppy and had exposed magnetic media.
The icon is considered a "skeuomorph".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeuomorph#Virtual_examples
Polybius
(15,476 posts)A huge amount of software still uses it too, and thank God for that!
Polybius
(15,476 posts)AllaN01Bear
(18,387 posts)Polybius
(15,476 posts)Are you sure? As in March 2024? Why? Is a router not an option with their computers?
AllaN01Bear
(18,387 posts)We need to upgrade in this country. Everyone should have access to highspeed internet, should they choose to.
HoosierDebbie
(292 posts)42+ billion dollars was designated to make high speed internet available all across the country through Biden's Infrastructure Plan.