Sony To End Floppy Manufacturing

[Super TWiT]

Sony announced that they are going to cease the sale of floppies in japan by march of 2011. PC World stopped ordering them in 2007. Is this a sign for the rest of us that its time to stock pile these babies? However, it sounds as if sony may continue to sell floppies in the U.S. along with imation, maxell, verbatim, and staples. Here's a link to the PC World Article.

[Orjan]

Are floppies still being manufactured? One would think the market for these would be almost non-existant today.

[countzero]

well it's still possible to find NOS 5.25 today, so I wouldn't worry about 3.5 stuff for a long time ...

[Karlos]

Stockpiling floppies is probably a bad idea. They have a limited life anyway. I think if you are using a classic machine it's time to look into how else you might transfer files.

One of the most useful things I've ever plugged into my A1200 was a network card. Faster than floppy and far more flexible too.

I think the main reason to have a few floppies are for emergency boot disks.

-edit-

Though as countzero says, there is probably plenty of NOS too.

[persia]

Waste of good plastic, virtually no space, you'd need 4 to 6 of them for a single photo or song.  I've got a pocketful of flash drives, what do I need these things for?

[B00tDisk]

I can't think of the last PC I built with a floppy drive.  Maybe...eight? years ago?  

All my boot disks now are CDs or USB drives.

And yet, still, I have stacks of the fucking things lying around here!

[Karlos]

Waste of good plastic, virtually no space, you'd need 4 to 6 of them for a single photo or song.  I've got a pocketful of flash drives, what do I need these things for?

If you don't have any classic systems, none whatsoever. If you actually do own some original amiga machines still, then they do have their occasional use, especially if your HD goes west.

That said, the last time I had a HD boot issue like that, I put the offending HD into a PC, fired up winuae and corrected it from there. Not a floppy in sight.

[Boudicca]

Waste of good plastic, virtually no space, you'd need 4 to 6 of them for a single photo or song.  I've got a pocketful of flash drives, what do I need these things for?

Hate to say it, I've got 5.25 floppies dating to the eighties round here and they still read, the 128meg flash I bought two years ago doesn't....says a lot really. And heres the irony, that they are looking back to paper to provide long life storage of Data as punch cards and paper tape are still readable electronically 40 years after they were created.

[ElPolloDiabl]

Buy 1 packet and re-use them a lot.

[B00tDisk]

If you don't have any classic systems, none whatsoever. If you actually do own some original amiga machines still, then they do have their occasional use, especially if your HD goes west.

That said, the last time I had a HD boot issue like that, I put the offending HD into a PC, fired up winuae and corrected it from there. Not a floppy in sight.

Most classic systems now have some sort of solid state storage kludged to 'em, though.

[scuzzb494]

Most classic systems now have some sort of solid state storage kludged to 'em, though.

Where do you get this kind of rubbish....

I have enough floppies to last till the day I die. Why on earth would you want to muck a classic machine by infecting it with such modern junk. Honestly. The Amiga was never designed this way, and the floppy works just fine. Those that kludge as you call it, what ever that means, just degrade the true Amiga experience. Dunno why you just don`t get an emulator and be done with it.

And what do mass storage devices have to do with it.. We were talking about the threat to the Amiga from not having removable storage media in the form of floppies. So yes go stock up on your floppies and keep your current floppies safe. All my originals still work so really I don`t see the problem.

AUI decrunching to DF0: All done... Classic.

scuzz
http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com

[Super TWiT]

I want to point out that maxell, imation, verbatim, and staples still make floppies (in america atleast) (haven't announced that they are going to quit) and that possibly sony of america may continue. Many news sites say that this is the death of the floppy, but the more I think about it, the less it seems like a big deal. Some people say that because sony did this others will follow soon, however many companies have pulled out of the floppy business, and not everyone followed suite.

[ChuckT]

A lot of the older people aren't quick to upgrade so there are instructors at the university level who still have their old computers.

However, they are probably just using them for word processing so there is no need to upgrade your computer every three years.  As long as it works, some find no need to waste money.

[Boudicca]

A lot of the older people aren't quick to upgrade

Us Older people are just doing fine thank u with plenty SOA kit knocking about;) I will remember your kind words when I take delivery of my next toy.

[B00tDisk]

Where do you get this kind of rubbish....

I have enough floppies to last till the day I die. Why on earth would you want to muck a classic machine by infecting it with such modern junk. Honestly. The Amiga was never designed this way, and the floppy works just fine. Those that kludge as you call it, what ever that means, just degrade the true Amiga experience. Dunno why you just don`t get an emulator and be done with it.

And what do mass storage devices have to do with it.. We were talking about the threat to the Amiga from not having removable storage media in the form of floppies. So yes go stock up on your floppies and keep your current floppies safe. All my originals still work so really I don`t see the problem.

AUI decrunching to DF0: All done... Classic.

scuzz
http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com

Do you have some kind of brain injury or is my sarcasm detector on the blink?