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Value of 720kb Floppies

One thing that bothers me about flash, be it CF, SDHC, MMC, USB drive, SmartMedia (remember those?) or any of the proprietary packages is that they're basically all-or-nothing when it comes to performance. I've never run into an FC, for example, that was only partlly readable.

I can have a bunch of serious errors on a tape or floppy and still recover much of the data.

Punched cards and paper type were even better.

Ultimately, I think flash will find its proper place as replacement for DRAM (the economy of scale is there and so are some promising technologies).
 
retro69 said:
it is hard to find floppies, and most of them not working. if they works today, they will die soon (both drives and floppies).
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I find ads with floppies on www.craigslist.org all the time. I picked up about 1,200 a while ago for free so it just a matter of keeping your eyes open. Also: www.staples.com still sells them and you also find them at www.goodwill.com stores on a regular basis.
 
retro69 said:
it is hard to find floppies, and most of them not working. if they works today, they will die soon (both drives and floppies). I have lots of computer with faulty drives (amigas, ataris etc.)...
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I don't know - I find floppies to be incredibly reliable. Sure, sometimes a machine that's been sitting for a while needs it's drives cleaned, but by and large, I've only encountered a handfull of faulty drives that weren't fixed by a bit of cleaning.

Diskettes, properly stored, are also very reliable. You do run across the occasional problem with shedding oxide on some brands of 5 1/4" and 8" floppies, however. The biggest problem I've seen with floppies is disks that were stored someplace damp - there is a mold that grows on the media.

I mean, the floppy emulators are very cool - but floppies are not *that* unreliable.

-Ian
 
RetroHacker_ said:
I mean, the floppy emulators are very cool - but floppies are not *that* unreliable.
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As long as you storage images of floppy disks on another media you can always replace out defective floppies. Since floppies are so easy to obtain I consider this a non issue. Especially in the 3.5" area. But even 5.25" & 8" floppies are not that hard to find.

A sample search on Craigslist today:
USD 02 = 25 3.5" floppy disks, http://longisland.craigslist.org/sys/2143934831.html
USD 25 = 400 3.5" floppy disks, http://newyork.craigslist.org/lgi/sys/2175963773.html
USD 12 = 100 3.5" floppy disks, http://newyork.craigslist.org/que/sys/2176876434.html
USD ?? = floppy disks, http://newhaven.craigslist.org/zip/2172711968.html
USD 00 = http://newjersey.craigslist.org/zip/2157613127.html

I see these come up all the time.
 
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