Technology advances quickly. It is sometimes hard to recall that either the laptop or desktop computers I use today are descendants of the Apple IIE, the first computer I ever used back in 1977. During a press conference many years ago, Bill Gates offered his opinion that anything greater than 500MB of hard drive memory would be gratuitously unnecessary. Whoops!
Along with the evolution of computer hardware, beginning perhaps with IBM’s room size computer with multiple tape drives in the early 1960s, there has been a parallel evolution in both software (programs) and in removable storage media. The 3.5″, 1.44MB disks we called ‘floppies’ – though they were and are not floppy at all, having inherited the name from a still older version of (Apple) removable storage-ware that WAS, in fact, floppy- are now giveaways at computer and office supply stores. Most new computers no longer come with floppy disk drives installed though they remain available as options or as external USB plug-in devices.
First there were floppies that were really floppy. Then came these diskettes, then ZIP media of various sizes, then CDs, then DVDs – now, dual layer DVDs. While most consumers can only wonder about and speculate over what will evolve next, two things are certain. 1) Each new removable storage media developed will be able to record and store more and more data (Diskettes at 1.44MB vs. Dual Layer DVDs at about 8.8GBs for example) and 2) Those 3.5″, 1.44MB diskettes are history.
Like most computer users in the 1970s and 1980s, I accumulated literally hundreds of these diskettes. Why, it took at least a half a dozen of them to store even the simplest of programs or to create a set of boot disks. They took up huge amounts of storage space, were awkward and bulky to handle and sort. I disposed of them after copying everything on them I still needed (which on review wasn’t actually too much at all!) onto my modern Hard Drives, CDs or DVDs.
My DELL 8250 desktop, now nearly 5 years old, has a disk drive installed, but my new laptop (an HP dv6500t) does not. I don’t expect the next desktop to have one so I do have an external disk drive that I will probably hang on to forever! I also have an external ZIP drive, just in case something turns up that I once stored on one of those.
These older storage media are to computers what 8-track tapes are to playing recorded music in your car. They are the Beta-Max of storage, excepting that unlike the Beta-Max video recording format that was ultimately buried by VHS, 1.44MB disks were ubiquitous in computer use for many years.
I can’t decide why these archaic disks still are available on store shelves. Is someone actually continuing to store data on them when a small key/thumb drive can now store 4GBs or more in less space with more universal adaptability and convenience? Maybe there are still folks around using them to keep documents they prepare on old machines or who are simply enamored of them in a way that is easy to regard as habitual if not definitively neurotic.
Perhaps they still have some reasonable and good use that I am overlooking. Perhap
