back to article Door creaks and girl farts: computing in the real world

A few weeks ago I dissed the expensive new Apple MacBook Pro for trading a downgraded component spec in return for a pretty display and solid-state memory. In passing, I gave an example of this downgrade: the lack of a CD drive. Several readers helpfully commented that they hadn’t used CD media in ages and wouldn’t miss an …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.

Page:

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @rich_a: "Those of us who remember the original iMac also remember that Apple did a roaring trade in overpriced USB floppy drives and probably made them much more money than if they just inserted one inside the thing in the first place"

        When I heard that Apple was dropping floppy drives from its lineup, I almost cheered. I had come to dread seeing anything come into the office on a floppy disk - you'd put the disk in, sit and wait while it sat whirring and grinding away for a while, then watch the progress meter with bated breath wondering if it would make it the whole way. The capacity of a floppy was already pathetic by that time, and they were the number 1 source of hardware failures.

        1. rich_a

          Hi Ralph. I mostly agree with you. Floppy disks were crap. However in the late 90's when the iMac debuted they were an inexpensive way of transferring and carrying around documents and spreadsheets. Net access was not ubiquitous, uploading 1.4MB of data took an age over the nowhere-near 56K modems everyone used and "cloud" storage services didn't exist anyway. A few people had zip drives, but they had their own problems and weren't present on many computers at all. IIRC the first USB flash drives came out a few years after the iMac, so they weren't around for the first generation.

          I'd bet 50p that the majority of the first gen iMacs were sold with a floppy drive. People needed to carry around their work somehow!

          1. Wheaty73

            @Rich

            I had a 1st gen iMac and didn't buy a USB floppy with it. Ethernet worked fine. Flash drives did exist, but they were huge (in physical terms) and tiny (in capacity). I had a 64Mb one with a bright yellow cap about the size of a hilighter pen, which cost me an arm and a leg.

            I did however buy a USB floppy/card reader combo a few years ago to get access to a single file on a DD disk I found in the attic. Still use it as a card reader - not so much a floppy drive.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          bated

          Up voted for getting bated right.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Those of us who remember the original iMac

        "Those of us who remember the original iMac also remember that Apple did a roaring trade in overpriced USB floppy drives and probably made them much more money than if they just inserted one inside the thing in the first place"

        I remember the original iMac and I'm pretty certain that Apple did not make a USB floppy. They all came from 3rd party accessory manufacturers.

  1. Joe Harrison

    It's all synergistic you know

    These questionable decisions don't just cause problems in isolation. There's also our other cost-saving favourite; not giving you Windows installation media when you buy a PC these days.

    Which leads to the ridiculous situation of your new optical-drive-less computer popping up stern warnings that you really should get three blank DVDs ready and click here to make a backup.

  2. Efros

    3 year old laptop

    Has an IR interface used zero times, had a dvd rw until about six months ago at which point I pulled it and replaced it with a second HD bay, prior to this it had been used twice in 2.5 years. Apple MacBook I have has a "superdrive" which hasn't been used at all in its 3 year lifetime, but then the MacBook hasn't been used much either.

  3. geekclick
    Happy

    Anyone who works "in IT"..

    Should carry a USB CDRW/DVDRW drive by default. My laptop has no optical drive built in but came bundled with a USB one, has been one of the most handy peripherals i have ever kept in my kit bag! The time of the built in spinning storage (both HDD's and Optical) is nearing its end but bundling a USB one with the machine should be the standard.

    For all those knocking on about USB drives etc, when was the last time you installed an OS from one? Its a ballache in the extreme hence why OS discs are still discs....

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Anyone who works "in IT"..

      You work in IT - really? I install OSs from USB sticks all the time and loathe if I had to do it using a CD/DVD.

      Apple ship OSX Lion on USB by default or it's downloadable. We have images for Windows OSs that we can download. It's 2012 not 1995.

    2. Andrew Waite
      Stop

      Re: Anyone who works "in IT"..

      OS install from USB stick?

      I do it regularly, both for live boot scenarios and full-blown builds. Take a look at unetbootin, and join the spaceshop generation.

      CD/DVD make good coffee cup holders, but that's about it.

      1. Aaron Em

        The "spaceshop generation"?

        Well, I would, but I haven't been by KSC lately --

    3. Mark 65

      Re: Anyone who works "in IT"..

      @geekclick: Installing an OS from a USB stick is an absolute dream. Way quicker than spinning media. So much so that I have several sticks that I have bought for the sole purpose of hosting various OS installation media - buy it, load it on, label it, then just keep it for whenever it's needed. Even create your own slipstream install on one.

      My carry everywhere USB drive on my keyring contains various bootable OSes for system recovery etc created with MultiSystem on Linux. That is something I'd recommend for IT people for the inevitable "can you take a look at our PC" moment when you're round someone's house for a social call. At the moment I have (from memory) Puppy Linux, RIP Linux, Darik's Boot and Nuke, Ubuntu and a persistent store area on the one stick.

      I accept the point about optical drives being necessary - clients prefer media on them to USB sticks due to the nature of the medium being finalised - but I wouldn't go back to installing an OS off of them unless I really had to.

      1. Goat Jam
        Windows

        Can you look at my PC?

        No.

        Try it, it's not that hard.

        If you have difficulty saying the "n" word then there are any number of suitable get out clauses.

        "I'm a network engineer, I don't do PC support" is an old faithful.

        Persistant naggers then get "Ah, I see you use Windows. I work with Unix, don't know anything about Windows, sorry".

        Still don't know what this "Windows user" icon means.

    4. Volker Hett

      Re: Anyone who works "in IT"..

      For all those knocking on about USB drives etc, when was the last time you installed an OS from one? Its a ballache in the extreme hence why OS discs are still discs....

      5 physical Windows 7 Desktops today without any media, look up PEX.

      2 Windows 2008r2 virtual Servers from Image files

      1 Knoppix from a USB stick.

  4. paj

    For occasional use, you can always buy a USB CD drive - and in the past I expect you could have bought a USB infrared port. I think they're doing exactly the right thing stripping out components that are only used occasionally. It's not just the cost - they're saving you carrying around deadweight too.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    CD/DVD is dying - USB drives are super cheap and fast - think I last paid under £20 for a 32Gb one which can hold a LOT more data than a few CDs or DVDs. Move on. Is IR really a better solution these days - no - that's why it's not included and if you need an USB IR adapter I'd imagine Amazon have them for a few quid.

    I have not used IR on a computer for perhaps 10 years now. I have an external CD/DVD drive in my drawer - perhaps use it 2-3 times a year. Laptop makers started making the CD/DVD drives removable so you could have nothing (save weight) or put an extra battery in instead. Ask almost all notebook users and the extra battery is the preferred option.

    1. Nigel 11
      Meh

      DVD-W still has a niche

      One writeable DVD costs less than 20p and holds nearly 5Gb. Cheap enough to give away freely and/or stick in the post. 8Gb USB sticks are at least twenty times more expensive.

      Yes, you can send 4.6 Gb by network these days, and without pain on a LAN. However, at DSL upload speed? OK, it might complete overnight and it probably will beat the post, but that's not very convenient . Especially if there's more than one person you need to send a copy to.

      Despite this, I don't object to computers lacking a DVDRW drive. I've got a dinky little USB DVDRW drive that powers itself off a single USB socket. If you don't have access to one, there's something wrong with you or your employer.

  6. MJI Silver badge

    Isometimes need a floppy drive

    But my new work PC doesn't have one.

    Just what you need when testing a floppy disc output (still in use in the real world)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Isometimes need a floppy drive

      So - get a USB floppy drive - this is not rocket science. I've not used a floppy drive in perhaps 5 years but even back then I used a USB drive - think it cost about £20 - so probably cheaper now.

      Some of these guys would have some frankenstein with CD/DVD drives, floppy drives, parallel printer ports, IR and whatever else god-damn-best-forgotten technology the rest of us have left behind.

      Still use candles at home (as your main source of light)?

      1. Richard 12 Silver badge

        Re: Isometimes need a floppy drive

        USB FDD are about a tenner, I have several USB floppy drives because I support legacy products that have them.

        However, what about the actual floppy discs?

        The disks you buy these days seem pretty rubbish, not lasting very long and I gather there's only one factory making them.

        When they stop, then what?

      2. MJI Silver badge

        Re: Isometimes need a floppy drive

        Someone still has one so not too bad.

        I used SUBST!!!!

        My home PC has

        Floppy drive

        DVD writer

        BluRay writer

        quite a few USB

        serial - don't think there is parallel

        Ethernet

        KB/M connectors

        Firewire

        SATA

        IDE

        Very little I can't connect it to, childrens home computer even has MIDI & optical digital.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "So - get a USB floppy drive - this is not rocket science"

    .... not going to do much to help me with my paper tape though!

    1. MJI Silver badge

      paper tape

      We were lucky there - the kit was converted to network before we want to Windows.

      Machines - lots of different connections

      Paper tape

      Floppies

      Network connections - how about when one using NETX IPX and they downgrade their server to Windows.

  8. Simon Aspland
    Facepalm

    CD-R/DVD-R Still have a place...

    Until the price of USB sticks come down to 'throw away' levels, there is still a place for CD-R/DVD-Rs.

    In the example described, the girl with the CD full of files, yes she could have brought them on a USB stick, but if she needed to leave the files there with a post it note 'cause the bloke who wanted them wasn't in the office, would she rather leave a £5-£20 memory stick? or a 15p CD?

    1. Jediben
      FAIL

      Re: CD-R/DVD-R Still have a place...

      Er... why not just copy the files to a PC in the office and he can get them whenever he wants, and she can leave with the USB stick...

      1. Simon Aspland

        Re: CD-R/DVD-R Still have a place...

        So you'd be happy for someone to come into your office, attach a USB stick to your PC and copy files onto your desktop when you're not there?

        It's not a very 'polite' thing to do, and opens her up for 'what did you do to my PC?' questions etc...

        1. Jediben
          Devil

          Re: CD-R/DVD-R Still have a place...

          A machine in the office, not the specific machine of the user who is not present. If no machine can be accessed then you're out of luck. But then again...

          How exactly is a CD appearing on someone's desk with a postit note any more secure than the files appearing on the local drive/server after an authorised logon from a user with credentials? Are you really going to pop that disc in your drive?

          1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

            Re: Are you really going to pop that disc in your drive?

            Yes, because I don't have a stupidly configured computer that runs anything presented to it, and there is a good reason to expect it is valuable to me. Even with Windows one of the first things I do is disable autorun on *ALL* media via the registry setting.

            How would any other media be safer? Infected USB are depressingly common...

        2. WahWah
          FAIL

          Re: CD-R/DVD-R Still have a place...

          No, I wouldn't be happy. That's why we have a file server.

  9. Ian Ferguson
    Thumb Up

    Brilliant article

    I can empathise completely, especially with the infra-red.

    In 1999, I could use my Handspring Visor's infra-red port to instantly control my TV and stereo from one screen.

    In 2012, my LG TV has an iPhone app for controlling it over WiFi. Lovely, except that every time I want to use it I have to connect to WiFi, launch the app, wait for it to find compatible devices on the network, then select the TV, all before I can push the 'volume up' button. And no chance of using it to control the stereo.

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: Brilliant article

      You can buy an IR dongle for your iPhone, or make your own: Google 'DIY iPhone IR dongle'. It works with apps that generate an IR signal from a WAV file, since it is constructed from an old 3.5mm jack and some IR LEDs.

      1. TheOtherHobbes

        Re: Brilliant article

        Yes you can.

        But why should you have to get out a soldering iron when it would cost Apple nothing to build in an IR LED and knock out a driver for it?

        There's no problem including GPS, a magnetometer, a gyro, an accelerometer, two cameras, a proximity sensor, water sensors, a custom processor, MP3 audio hardware, WiFi, and a graphics accelerator.

        But apparently an IR LED is an extra too far.

  10. Kwac
    Trollface

    Was it here?

    Was it on El reg that I regularly see comments regarding security & USB ports?

    1. John 110
      FAIL

      Re: Was it here?

      It could have been. Where I work all USB ports are locked down and don't let you plug a stick into them unless it's an authorized encrypted one (like the supplied ones that crashed the PCs when they tried to run their setup program). When reps and visiting lecturers turn up with a USB stick, we just laugh... (then we dig out our non-networked laptop with the CD burner and burn a CD).

      <aside>One visiting lecturer turned up with a USB stick, which when we finally (illegally) accessed the contents contained a .key file. Sigh. </aside>

  11. Dave 126 Silver badge

    We all have different favourite 'little things'

    Little things such as; IR port, external volume knob, Caps-Lock indicator, cursor key placement, USB port spacing, Middle Button under trackpad...

    Some people might care about some of the above, some might not give a hoot. Personally, I'd like the dummy ExpressCard in my laptop to be something useful, such as being a case for spare SD cards, or housing a screen-cleaning duster or a CD marker pen.

    If you've gone to the effort of carrying around a few DVDs, then it isn't much extra work to carry an external drive to play them on, since its barely bigger than a DVD case.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Trollface

    What's it like to live in the distant past, Grampa Dabbs?

  13. Suricou Raven

    Thiner?

    Why are they so crazed over making it so thin? Shaving off a few milimeters isn't going to do anything for useability, and the macbook series are already thin enough to fit into any bag. What possible benefit is there to making it any thinner, even ignoring the compromises of reduced functionality and increased cost that such dimensional squeezing demands?

    1. Jediben
      Paris Hilton

      Re: Thiner?

      Haven't you heard? A shaved one is MUCH better!

    2. Nigel 11
      Devil

      Re: Thiner?

      Thinner makes it intrinsically more fragile (wrt getting bent). Something I'm sure the manufacturers have thought long and hard about. Convince the punters to pay more for a less durable product. Yes. Oh YES.

  14. Tom7
    Thumb Down

    I got rid of the optical drive in my laptop two months ago and replaced it with a spinning HDD to make up for only having a 128GB SSD. I've been lugging the optical drive around since, "Just in case," but I've never needed it and might as well chuck it, I reckon.

    1. Aaron Em

      The day you chuck it

      will be the day before the day you need it.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    No-one took it off you.

    If you want to stick to your old ways, stick to your old machine.

    Jesus H. Ghostbusting Christ, it's not rocket science.

    1. M Gale

      Re: No-one took it off you.

      Meanwhile, on the Starship Joefish, where hardware lasts forever...

      ...but back in the real world, things break.

      And spinning disks are far from dead.

  16. Mephistro

    The devil is in the details...

    Transferring some ancient-but-needed piece of legacy software from a CD to a thumbdrive takes time, some knowledge of what you are doing, and may well be impossible due to copy protection. As an IT pro, being paid by the hour, I've nothing against Apple or any other PC maker removing the CD drive from their products, but customers may feel differently when they find out that the cost of doing this just once is probably bigger than the cost of including a CD drive in their machine.

    Also, ripping music or video takes some time and effort, and there are times when it's not cost effective. Imagine that, while on a trip/holiday/whatever you want to, say, watch all the Godfather films in your laptop . If you don't have a CD drive, you'll spend several hours ripping the DVDs. And if something goes wrong chances are you'll notice it when you are in that log cabin in the woods or in that 10 hours flight. To top the cake, you won't probably want to watch those films again in a long long time.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The devil is in the details...

      If you are an IT professional surely you would be 'expert' enough to carry around a £20 USB/DVD drive rather than rip them off?

      1. Mephistro

        Re: The devil is in the details...

        If I had to carry around everything I could possibly need to perform my tasks, I'd need a fucking lorry. IMO, carrying around a bulky piece of hardware that you'll need to use five or ten times a year at most would be beyond silly. And no, I'm not ripping off my customers. When this kind of situation happens, I always advise them to buy one of these USB DVD drives, so the next time they need to repair/reinstall their software they can do it by themselves.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: The devil is in the details...

          Bulky piece of hardware - surely you jest - an external CD/DVD drive is barely larger than a standard CD 'case' - if that's your job would think it pretty minor and has the benefit that you can use it on their machine or yours. This is just so not rocket science but too many people want everything from the past as well as all the new stuff as well. Holding on to the old stuff for too long holds us back.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The devil is in the details...

      Both problems are solves by a CHEAP external drive - this is not rocket science - stop looking for problems when the solutions are so obvious and easy. My external DVD drive is barely larger than a standard CD casing - it's no 'effort' to carry it along with a few DVDs on those rare times I may want it.

  17. Jon Double Nice

    Honestly, kids today!

    I bemoan the day they dropped support for wax cylinders, and after I'd gone to all the trouble of converting my cave paintings to that format.

    Where can you buy C90 cassettes now that Woolworths has closed down?

    Don't policemen look young nowadays!

    1. Soruk

      Re: Honestly, kids today!

      > Where can you buy C90 cassettes now that Woolworths has closed down?

      Last time I looked, both Maplin and Poundland had them.

Page:

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like