What Are the Windows A: and B: Drives Used For?
Linked by Hadrien Grasland on Thu 13th Jan 2011 12:53 UTC, submitted by sawboss
Hardware, Embedded Systems "The question that forms the title of this article has recently been posted on the Super User Q&A site for computer enthusiasts. At first I was shocked at how silly a question it was as everyone should know that, right? But then I started to think about it and realized anyone under a certain age probably has no clue."
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Floppies are not dead!
by reez on Thu 13th Jan 2011 16:49 UTC
reez
Member since:
2006-06-28

Recently I installed the most recent NetBSD via floppies (and IPv6). So what?

Floppies still rock!

I am 21 and have been using ZX80 computers using cassettes.

Before that I played SimAnt, which also came with those huge 5,1/4 floppies.

Last but not least their sound is awesome! ;)

Edited 2011-01-13 16:49 UTC

Reply Score: 3

RE: Floppies are not dead!
by Neolander on Thu 13th Jan 2011 16:54 in reply to "Floppies are not dead!"
Neolander Member since:
2010-03-08

Last but not least their sound is awesome! ;)

I give you that, especially considering which sounds can come out of a floppy drive when sufficiently modded ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1dRaPqVgl8

Reply Parent Score: 1

RE: Floppies are not dead!
by AnythingButVista on Thu 13th Jan 2011 17:03 in reply to "Floppies are not dead!"
AnythingButVista Member since:
2008-08-27

Aaahh, the good old days when you could actually hear when a drive was in use! ;)

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[2]: Floppies are not dead!
by Neolander on Thu 13th Jan 2011 17:22 in reply to "RE: Floppies are not dead!"
Neolander Member since:
2010-03-08

Aaahh, the good old days when you could actually hear when a drive was in use! ;)

Well, actually my backup external HDD still makes quite audible sounds when it's powered on. I especially like the one which sounds like it's digesting something... No idea what it can possibly be doing.

In fact, I'd say that being noisy is a feature in that case : it reminds me to power it off after use ;)

Edited 2011-01-13 17:22 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 1

RE: Floppies are not dead!
by kaelodest on Thu 13th Jan 2011 17:25 in reply to "Floppies are not dead!"
kaelodest Member since:
2006-02-12

For Real Tho'!
I think I still have BSD PPC boot floppy for Macs from way back in the day. I remember MacOS 7 and Six on floppies. And iirc MacOS 6 was written in assembly. I used to love the auto eject thing that Apple had.

thelast PC that I used floppies with had misaligned heads - so they only worked in my own A:

Reply Parent Score: 1

RE: Floppies are not dead!
by foregam on Thu 13th Jan 2011 17:52 in reply to "Floppies are not dead!"
foregam Member since:
2010-11-17

> Last but not least their sound is awesome! ;)
In the olden times you could actually hear the PC ticking while checking the amount of installed memory during POST. It took a while to check twice 4MB ;)

Reply Parent Score: 2

Ah, cassettes
by Florin.Crisan on Fri 14th Jan 2011 09:00 in reply to "Floppies are not dead!"
Florin.Crisan Member since:
2008-04-21

Ah... cassettes... you'd wait 5 minutes to get an “R Tape loading error, 0:1” I remember I always had to align the reading head of the player to match the cassette – in the end I could actually tell by the sound if it would load. Those were the days...

Reply Parent Score: 1