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The short answer is no. They really aren't of any use any more.
Long answer: There are still quite a few old machines that have a slot for the second generation floppies, the 3 1/2 inch disks. You just have to keep asking around for access to an older machine, even, for example, a laptop or desktop computer from 2005 might have such a slot.
These 3 1/2 inch floppies replaced the original floppy disks which were 5 1/4 inch floppy disks. Quite hard to find a machine that has a slot for one of these. But, just as there are people that like to play old 78 RPM records on their old machine, there are a few that still have an ancient - 1980's - computer set up that will run the old floppies. Only the real old timers of the computer age have used them. Back then a hot computer had 640 kbyte of RAM. Hardly anyone had a HD so there were usually two slots for these, the A Drive and the B Drive. To this day most computers call their main drive C Drive and this is the reason.
Good luck finding someone that has a machine that can read your floppy!
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∙ 11y ago
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What did people use before floppy disks?
Before Floppy disks were available, people still transferred data. It used to be with help of punch cards, reel to reel tapes, and cassette tapes. The early home computers used cassette tapes.
When were floppy disks discontinued?
As of 2009, floppy disks are still manufactured and sold in limited quantities. They ceased to be a popular choice for data backup and transport after about 2002.
Why do you still need floppy drives?
normally for backup purpouses and boot disks
Why was the floppy disk invented?
Because they are actually floppy disks of magnetic film. They don't seem floppy when you handle them because they're housed in a rigid plastic case that lets you slide them into your computer. That is if you still have a floppy drive on your computer.
Are floppy disk still used today?
NO we have these new things called cd's aka compact disks
Are floppies important today?
For most purposes, floppy disks are no longer considered important or useful. They have been supplanted by newer and more reliable forms of storage. For some people with legacy equipment that they cannot replace, such as older electronic keyboards, sewing machines, or industrial equipment, floppy disks are still required.
Can you view a windows 95 floppy disc on an xp computer?
Yes. Most floppy disks all the way from the original IBM PC to the present day use the FAT file system, so a floppy created in Windows 95 (or MS-DOS, for that matter) could still be read on Windows XP or Windows Vista.
Are fdd's still used in computers today?
Floppy disks are rarely used today, mainly due to the fact that they are obsolete. Flash drives, hard disk drives, and memory cards all take the role of floppy disks in a more simple fashion.
Why do the floppy disk files which have been saved to your computer load so slowly?
The primary reason that floppy disks are so slow is that the computers they were originally used on were very slow. Floppy disks have had to be kept at a slow rate so that old software on them can still be used and older computers can still read disks made by newer ones.
Do people use floppy disks today?
I still use floppy disks for backing up some small files, like Word Documents, Text Files, and small "WAV file sound effects when I don't have any CDs or my flash drive is full.I still have some old DOS games on floppy that I still play sometimes, though I have them backed up on CD, but I still play the games on Floppy if I can't find the CD.I also maintain an Emergency Boot Disk, in case my computer crashes or gets hit by a virus and I need to go into DOS to resurrect the computer.My School has older computers in the Social Studies computer lab that has computers with floppy disks, but I've never used them, I have a Pen drive for that! But I've seen the School IT guy use them to keep these old machines going.My current Workplace has a few older printing presses that need to be "calibrated" using 4 unmarked floppy disks, in order, or the margins will be off and that docked from your pay. Luckily they copies of copies of copies of the original disks and they are different colors, so they always go Yellow-Blue-Black-Grey, Yellow-Blue-Black-Grey, etc.The U.S. Government has a protocol that sensitive, classified military documents, such as Nuclear Defense Information, that was written in the 1980s, when floppy disks were the only way to distribute computer information. It would cost so much to transfer all the information to a more modern format, dispose of the old disks and write new protocol that they continue to use floppy disks to distribute this information in 2010 as they did in the 1980s.There are a lot of older technology still in daily use that requires the use of floppy disks, like industrial equipment and cash registers. I went shopping early at a thrift store (shortly after they opened) once and I had to wait for them to boot the register from 3 floppy disks to buy some clothes, this was in 2008, too!I remember saving some songs I had composed on an electric keyboard using a integrated floppy disk and could play them as "MIDI" files either on the keyboard or on my computer! But that was back in 2003.Older digital cameras store their pictures on a floppy disk, also. Most of those cameras are of better quality than the modern, cheap flash-based digital cameras, film-like without the film. Though many of these have been abandoned in favor of new, flsh-based cameras.Many Developing and Third-World countries use older, obsolete computers that have no other way to transfer and store data than floppy drives, after the developed world deemed them to be "obsolete" and were considered "junk" their still serving Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Islands as daily work-horses in homes, schools, hospitals, businesses and government offices.As you can see floppy disks are still used, just usually as a legacy system, once all these technologies clunk out, they will be obsolete.
Differences between a floppy disk and a hard disk?
A floppy disk is a flexible and magnetic data storage system that is removable from the computer that can store up to 3 megabytes of data. A hard disk on the other hand is the main place that a computer stores data. It is a rotating disk that uses magnetic patterns to store data. Floppy disks have been replaced by USB flash drives.These days (2012) you will not find many floppy disks (although just a couple of years ago we had to order special floppy drives for a server because some software would only be installed if it booted from Drive: A a floppy). There were 8 inch and 5 inch and 31/2 inch floppy disks which were common. The latest (diskettes) were the smallest and were protected by a hard plastic casing. Inside a thin Mylar disk coated with a magnetic surface stored the 1.44 Mb that was the capacity of most diskettes. Hard disks have one or more aluminium or glass disks coated with magnetic surfaces. These hold much more information and now (2012) there are units that can store 3Tb or more.
Do you use floppy today?
They are seldom used today. While as recently as the 1990s, they were common, these days, few computers are equipped for them, although some companies do still have the machines that can read the information they contain. Computer technology is constantly being up-graded; how quickly floppy disks became obsolete is one example of the this kind of change.
