Bruce Banner Posted April 27, 2010 Share Posted April 27, 2010 http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/04/the-once-ubiquitous-floppy-finally-being-axed-by-sony.ars The 3.5" 1.44MB HD floppy may finally be going gentle into that good night. Sony, one of just a few companies that still produce the archaic computer storage media, has announced plans to end production of floppies in March 2011. The company sold about 12 million 3.5" floppies in Japan last year, which represents 70 percent of that market (and incidentally, about 17TB of data capacity). Floppies are still used with legacy equipment in education and research sectors, according to Sony. However, the company cited dwindling demand as the reason for ending production. The 3.5" floppy largely replaced the 5.25" floppy by the early '90s, but other storage mediums had begun to replace it by the late '90s. Apple's original iMac was the first mass-market computer to come without a floppy drive in 1998, and Windows PCs gradually followed suit. Iomega's 100MB Zip disk format became quite popular for larger file transfer for a short while, before succumbing to cheap 650MB CD-Rs early last decade. Today, most file transfer happens via the Internet, USB flash drives, or relatively low-cost, high-capacity portable hard drives. Memorex and 3M offshoot Imation still offer floppies for sale for the time being, but with Sony ending production, we expect the floppy will rage no more against the dying of the light. Frankly, we're a little surprised it raged this long. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryK Posted April 27, 2010 Share Posted April 27, 2010 I was the first 'on my block' to put linux on my pc in '95. I downloaded slackware on 40 floppies over 2 days....via a 14.4 baud modem. Don't laugh about the modem either. it was sweet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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