Ditch disk and bin tape: Harvard boffins have cracked DNA storage I recently decided to clean out my home office; I’d had enough of the 56K modems lying around, and needed the space. But what I didn’t expect was to find a museum of data storage concentrated in such a small space. I suspected at the time I wouldn’t need the 5.25" 720k floppy disks to upgrade to VMS v5.1 again, but thought, ' …
When my new motherboard arrived without a floppy port, I was not worried - until I read the OS installation instructions for Windows XP. These require two "pre-install" drivers to be installed before XP - by means of a Floppy Disk. Despite having three spare floppy drives, I had to buy an USB Floppy Drive before even starting installation.
XP will be in use for years to come, to handle the last decade's PC games - but Mobo makers continue to disrespect their customers (have you ever tried to install the latest generation of motherboards, using their cynically-called User's Manual?)
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"XP will be in use for years to come, to handle the last decades' PC game."
Really? I mean REAAAALLLLLYYYY???
Of one thing I am sure. XP will likely be the OS of choice in your domain... However, the rest of us Windoze users will likely be moving happily along to OS's that are not fully deprecated. Heck, we probably even bought a new game too. :-)
Maybe if you ask nicely, Bill will mail all his 1.44 floppies and thrown in his 5 1/4's to boot. I would not be surprised if you have plans to install that pancake sized disk drive in your new PC.
I actually still have some Psion Organiser II 16k data packs, which are EPROM based (and 2 LZs that still work, maybe I should sell them together with the barcode reader, the swipe reader and an interface for Mitutoya callipers I once built - might keep the digital calliper, though. Those were the days :)
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