Rainbow Pile of Obsolescence....

[j_cheney]

Last night I spent some time going through some old files. Computer files, that is.

3.5 inch floppies. Neither of my computers has a floppy drive, but I borrowed my husband's external 3.5 drive, and started hunting for a specific file.

I basically have 3 types of records. Old financial records, old school records, and old writing. I discovered that, for the most part, I have 12 back-ups of everything. Everything is backed up to CD as well.....except for that one file I needed. Why that one's missing, I have no idea.

Fortunately, my father fired up one of his old hard drives and found the file lurking there. (I'd sent him a copy a loooong time ago.)

I also counted nearly 50 unused 3.5 discs, in many flourescent shades.

Obsolete now, more or less. They don't hold enough data to make them worth the effort of saving....not when I have my small herd of flash drives (including the herd leader, the big 8GB.) Kinda sad in a way, as the discs come in lots of pretty colors....

Comments

[rcloenen-ruiz.livejournal.com]

I remember the thrill of going to the bookshop and choosing discs on the basis of how colorful they were and whether they matched my mood at the time. I have stacks of discs upstairs and hubby says we'll have to go through them sometime. I look at the pile and quail. Formidable task.

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

I did check every last one last night to be certain they were blank. I found several that weren't labelled, but had lots of files. oops!

It's gotta be done...

[amysisson.livejournal.com]

Two possible uses for old floppies:

Floppy disk notebook (http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=sr_gallery_3&listing_id=18538734&ga_search_query=floppy&ga_search_type=tag_title)

and

Floppy disk pen holder (http://www.instructables.com/id/Floppy-Disk-Pen-Holder/)

I've got tons of them too. I think many are from my original Mac, so many years ago.

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

I kinda like the pen holder....except that I already have several pen holders.....

Duplicate problem, I think. ;o)

[dr-phil-physics.livejournal.com]

I remember when colored floppies was considered an unnecessary expense. But then they stopped charging extra for them -- or else they went on sale -- and I realized that color coding disks by function was useful.

But not as useful as my flash drives. (grin)

Dr. Phil

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

SO true. ;o)

[reudaly.livejournal.com]

You could also shelac or laminate the floppies and make coasters.

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

Mmmmm.....not...

We actually have more of those coaster lying around than we need. No need to augment that problem.

[tacithydra.livejournal.com]

You could take a pretty photograph of them all together before you send them on their way... and then take a picture of the little pack of flash drives. It could be like one of those books on dinosaurs, where there's a big panorama of them that says "Dinosaurs of the Mesozoic" only this time it'd be "Disks of the Mesozoic" followed their more evolved cousins, "Drives of the Paleozoic"!

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

An our descendents will ask, "They stored data on those? And they only held 1.44MB? That must be a myth. I suspect they were used for coasters instead."

[justin-pilon.livejournal.com]

What none of these guys?

[displacedtexan.livejournal.com]

Ahh, memories.

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

Yeek! How scary....

[justin-pilon.livejournal.com]

I remember loading up video games from like a dozen of those things. Ah, those were the days. :-)

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

Thankfully, NO!

[justin-pilon.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing finding a reader for one of those would be interesting. Even the 3.5. :-)

[displacedtexan.livejournal.com]

One thing I’ve been thinking about lately is what will archeologists make of our period of time when the written record just ceases. No one writes letters, anymore, so there’s an important snapshot of daily life – gone. No one keeps diaries anymore, so there’s another important snapshot of daily life – gone. Thoughts, hopes, aspirations, letters put down in blogs and other electronic means will be lost because there won’t be a device on which to play them back. Our 21st Century civilization will seem pretty ephemeral. Heck, even our buildings aren’t built to last, so there won’t be any monuments outside of capitol cities.

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

Hello! You're on LiveJOURNAL!

I can actually print out my archive, BTW.

[displacedtexan.livejournal.com]

Yes, the irony wasn't lost on me.

[isleburroughs.livejournal.com]

I'm still using floppies. I can't find my flash drives. They're so small. But my novel grew during the edit and I had to split it into two floppies. So I have to find the lost flash drives and buy more.