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Last computer with floppy (date purchased)

  • 1998 or before

    Votes: 35 28.9%
  • 1999-2001

    Votes: 21 17.4%
  • 2002-2004

    Votes: 37 30.6%
  • 2005-Present (wtf if you answer here)

    Votes: 28 23.1%

  • Total voters
    121

apfhex

macrumors 68030
Aug 8, 2006
2,670
5
Northern California
Wow....I know USB flash drives aren't dirt cheap like a floppy, but their pretty cheap.
I've seen them for $15 and under, for 128 MB at least. I think you're crazy if you use a floppy. Least reliable form of storage I've experienced. Not to mention how little you can fit on them (maybe if you only deal in plain text files!).

My last computer with a floppy was a Performa 6200. I haven't used a floppy disk since then. Used Zips for a while after that though, until CD-R/RWs became standard.

My friends have home built PCs with floppy drives in them. They don't get used, but just since they're pretty much free to buy these days, I guess they think why not? (while I wonder "why?"... :D)
 

richard.mac

macrumors 603
Feb 2, 2007
6,292
5
51.50024, -0.12662
my family's computer still has one but its never used. USB flash drives are the way to go now.

when i build my custom PC im going to buy a flash card reader for my camera and place it in the 3.5" bay of the Antec Solo.
 

BlakTornado

Guest
Apr 24, 2007
944
0
Washington, OH
Wow....I know USB flash drives aren't dirt cheap like a floppy, but their pretty cheap. Plus they a lot more secure.

Yeah I got a 1GB Flash Drive from Staples [UK] for £6, which is REALLY cheap considering. Good price and works well. It's not like paying more will really give you any more features anyway. The best you'll get is either more storage or some fancy software thing you don't need. Personally, this one has been fine.

Floppy Disks are dead... All though I wonder how many people try and put floppy disks in the slot loading drives on iMacs, Macbooks and Mac Minis? :p
 

mrwizardno2

macrumors 6502a
Jun 19, 2007
818
63
Columbus, OH
The last time I had a machine with a floppy drive in it was over 8 years ago. when I still lived with my parents, they bought a Gateway. I think it was like 166 mhz or something ridiculously slow - just about useless. Every machine since, I had built - and left out floppies because we just didn't use them.

My first mac, a PowerBook G3 (pismo) also lacked a floppy drive ;-)

As have all macs since.
 

nineteentwelve

macrumors regular
May 31, 2007
124
0
Shrewsbury, UK
I used to own a Tiny PC back in the day. Probably around February of 2003. That was the last computer with a floppy drive. I've been on laptops since.

I don't know why the company I work for is still insistent on using floppy disk drives and zip disks. The sooner they adapt USB drives on a wider scale, the better.
 

macEfan

macrumors 65816
Apr 7, 2005
1,210
7
Well technically it did not come with a floppy drive, but I bought an external USB floppy drive to read old disks on my g4 ibook.
 

SkyBell

macrumors 604
Sep 7, 2006
6,606
226
Texas, unfortunately.
Yeah I got a 1GB Flash Drive from Staples [UK] for £6, which is REALLY cheap considering. Good price and works well. It's not like paying more will really give you any more features anyway. The best you'll get is either more storage or some fancy software thing you don't need. Personally, this one has been fine.

Floppy Disks are dead... All though I wonder how many people try and put floppy disks in the slot loading drives on iMacs, Macbooks and Mac Minis? :p

I always thought they could fit a floppy drive in a lower corner of the mini, since I so often found myself going to use my moms Dell to use the floppy disks my school gave me.
 

matthewlesh

macrumors member
Nov 11, 2007
52
0
I was using a reasonable old computer at work till about the end of last year (2007) for a bit with a floppy drive... didn't use it once through.
 

duncyboy

macrumors 6502a
Feb 5, 2008
724
1
This thread got me thinking the other day- me and my mate use a 4GB flash drive that we got for £15 for any swapping- I bought another for backing up most of my mp3 collection (stuff I couldn't easily replace from CD should the worst happen) and a 1GB drive to back up precious family pics and stuff I couldn't bear to lose.

Apart from my bought DVD's and CD's I rarely use optical discs anymore. When I buy a movie or album on DVD/CD they get copied to iTunes/iMac using Handbrake and then go onto the shelf to gather dust! :p

I get odd looks when someone asks me to copy them something to CD/DVD and I ask them to bring some blanks in for me like I'm being cheap, but I just don't use optical for storage any more.

Wonder if there'll be a thread one day asking
"The Last Computer You Had With A CD Drive" *

*(I know- highly unlikely :))
 

xlii

macrumors 68000
Sep 19, 2006
1,867
121
Millis, Massachusetts
DecSystem20... a 36 bit mainframe made by Digital Equipment Corporation... It was my work computer... OK, I didn't buy it but floppies were far better than DecTape which was on the DecSystem10... We're talking late 70's to mid 1980's.

I used to think that having a VT125 was a big step up. It's remarkable how well these machines handled multiple jobs running when they maxed out at about 32 mega bytes of memory (4 meg of 36 bit words), 8 megabytes of cache...

I worked in both manufacturing and engineering on them.
 

Dimwhit

macrumors 68020
Apr 10, 2007
2,069
299
My last floppy drive was in my PowerMac 8500 that I used until my G4 Quicksilver replaced it in 2002.



I always thought they could fit a floppy drive in a lower corner of the mini, since I so often found myself going to use my moms Dell to use the floppy disks my school gave me.

Your school gave you floppies?? Oh, that state of education these days...
 

pagansoul

macrumors 65816
Aug 10, 2006
1,040
43
Earth
I had a Sony camera that used them (now gone) and my Gatway profile has a floppy drive. It's one of the main reasons I still have it. The Gateway also can plan mini-CDs which is what my Sony Mavica CD500 uses. Yes, I also have a digital camera.
 

SkyBell

macrumors 604
Sep 7, 2006
6,606
226
Texas, unfortunately.
My last floppy drive was in my PowerMac 8500 that I used until my G4 Quicksilver replaced it in 2002.



Your school gave you floppies?? Oh, that state of education these days...

There's a bunch of corruption on the school board around here. We're one of two middle schools in town, generally referred to as the "poor school". There have been bribes and such made by the parents so the other middle school gets better equipment and better accommodations, which is evidenced by the fact that they have 27" LCD televisions in every classroom, and we have about 15 CRT televisions that are on carts so they can be moved from classroom to classroom as nesscescery.

Yeah I'm complaining, and sorry for de-railing the thread, carry on.:eek:
 

jodelli

macrumors 65816
Jan 6, 2008
1,219
4
Windsor, ON, Canada
My last with a 3 1/2 floppy drive was a PDQ PowerBook from about 1999 which had a swappable CD/floppy bay.

How about "When did you buy your last 5.25 inch floppy computer?"

The last one with a 5 1/4 floppy drive was an Atari 800 XL from about 1983.


Wonder if there'll be a thread one day asking
"The Last Computer You Had With A CD Drive" *

*(I know- highly unlikely :))
The last one with just a CD drive as opposed to DVD drives of one form or another is an iBook, which I still have. Yeah, I know CDs still work in DVD drives.
 

61132

Guest
Oct 31, 2005
327
0
A dell dimension 8300 I think thats the correct model number. Anyways, thats my last computer before I switched to a mac :)
 
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