The message 20060115205403.GL18761@thebowery.co.uk from Adam Bower adam@thebowery.co.uk contains these words:
You've been misinformatted.
Floopies are still useful (IMO) as failsafe boot devices, running microLinuces (microLunacies?) and loading acquired old progs and data to newer machines.
I disagree, I just had to deal with a floppy disk this evening. The grinding noises from the disk... it sounded like there was a hamster grater in my computer, not what should be a bit of "high tech"! after about 10 goes we got the required data off (at a speed that probably seemed really fast in 1978) and managed to print it (which co-incidently took about 10 goes, read more below on this).
IME trying to boot off a floppy disk on a stubborn machine that won't boot via the "normal" methods (CD-Rom, Network, USB) usually results in me taking the hard-disk out and booting the machine from elsewhere as the floppy disk i'm trying to use will be corrupt, or the drive will be faulty, or the drive in the machine i'm making the boot disk in is faulty or the image of the boot disk you are trying to use is corrupt on the ftp site/cdrom/local mirror because nobody checked it worked before releasing the software (usually a wacky combination of all of the above). In which case I now don't bother with floppy disks at all, except as the real last resort (even after trying to input a linux kernel via a toggle switch on the front panel).
Ah, I'm not talking about booting from a recalcitrant box, but an infected one. True, I've never had to do it on one of my boxen, but I've rescued a couple of fiends in the past by booting in DOS and running F-Prot from a floppy.
However, I understand that it's got too big for that now.
Pretty much every x86 machine I have *ever* used has been able to boot from CD-Rom, I use this feature and take it pretty much for granted. I find it a sign of how archaic the x86 PC can be that it still has floppy disk drives even now!
I'm quite happy to have a failsafe drive.
If I was king for a day I'd burn every floppy disk and floppy disk drive in the world (after taking off the important data first, obviously) as they are my most hated computer peripheral, closely followed in second place by printers (oh, so you can either not pick up *any* paper or 17 sheets at a time) and in third place is the motherboards in those cheap computers from places like PC World and Comet which only have 2 PCI slots (usually only 1 usable by the time you have stuck an ethernet card in the machine) and no AGP slot.
Ah - got one of those. Make good routers though. (FSVO good)
</rant> ;)
Good rant, some of it.
I still want three flavours of floppy drive for transfer of any old programs I find at boot sales or pooter/ham fairs and want to try.
By now, I think you get the picture that I don't like floppy disks :)
I think they're cuddly and items of great beauty and elegance...