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Dell to Ditch the Floppy
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Posted by: TotalRecall
Yahoo! Finance has a story on Dell's intentions to drop the floppy drive from its computers:
Dell Computer Corp. says the time is right to stop including floppy disk drives as standard hardware on its consumer desktop computers. Later this quarter, Dell will no longer include floppy disk drives in its Dimension desktops unless specially ordered. "We would like to see customers migrate away from floppies as quickly as possible, because there are better alternative technologies out there," said Mark Vena, director of product marketing for Dell's Dimension desktop PCs.
Dell will work to educate consumers that USB drives are a better way to take their data on the go. They're simple to use and provide for more secure data storage than floppies.
Read on here.
Posted by: nocode
that just wouldn't seem Right, having a computer without a good-ole floppy drive.
Posted by: ElmStreet
floppy must be gone someday. but it seems to me not a good time to act.
Posted by: Gunslinger
In regards to change, there's no time like the present.
Posted by: AK47
Cant wait to see what happens when people like my parents order a Dell and find out it has no place to put their floppy.
Posted by: Canis Lupus
Actually, the floppy really needs to be replaced by a more reliable, more scaleable removeable media ... there is no reason for it to stay. The ISA slot has been successfully phased out and replaced by PCI slots, so why not the floppy drive?
Posted by: Null Actor
Yup. They make a good point too, keychain USB drives are awesome, I've been meaning to pick one up. Far more reliable than floppies. Also, for a smaller drive the price is decent, and you still store a huge amount more than floppies.
Posted by: redwench
no real reason to have floppies anymore, with usb devices and cd burners. just have to tweak bios so that you can flash or boot from those devices. but, like the 5.25 drives, the floppys day has come.
Posted by: SKYHN
I say we ditch all types of media/readers out now and go back to punch cards 
Posted by: Digitalphatman
what we need is a usb cardreader drive that takes the space of the floppy in the case.
Posted by: ElmStreet
i told one of my friends, manager of small businese company, that there would be no more floppy disk drive on Dell.
he said, "who's gonna buy Dell anymore?"
in fact, there are less than 10 guys out of 1000 in my businese school who would be willing to have a computer without floppy, as i see.
good for us, turn eyes to other brands for them.
or mayne they will adapt to not have a floppy somehow.
Posted by: redwench
only thing i use the floppy for is to boot, flash the bios, or install drivers if they came that way. they arent big enough to hold anything of interest, except raw data. ill be happy to see them go.
Posted by: SKYHN
And all the newer mobos allow you to boot from the CD/DVD Drive now anyways(mine can and its almost 2 years old). Good riddance to the floppy if you ask me!
Posted by: ABrandNewSCV
Only one problem. I was installing a new HD from stratch the other day, and without the floppy drive, it would have been useless. It REQUIRED to be booted from th disk that came with the new HD. When I tried to boot from the CD that came with the HD, It was asking for the floppy.
Without the floppy, I would have had to buy a whole new computer, or search and search for a HD that would not require a floppy to be formatted and partitioned.
I don't believe the time is right. They need to organize between companies what exactly they are doing, so they have time to change their software/hardware requirements.
Posted by: redwench
search and search? odd phrasing, since most computers sold in the last 3 years allow you to boot from cd. its not the hd that was the problem, you need to boot from a boot disc, either of the floppy or the cd variety. the cd that comes with the hd may or may not be a boot disk.
Posted by: Canis Lupus
If no one initiates the departure from floppy drives, then no hardware or software company will feel the urgent need to discard it as a primary removeable media. It has to begin somewhere, and Dell is on the right track. It should have been begun several years ago, but better late than never...
Posted by: SKYHN
I cant believe how much of a scene this is causing. I saw this on CNN last night, and they were making a big deal about it. One guy said that dell was making a "Fatal mistake" and would be "cutting off a large portion of the market".
What I think they didnt show, was that guy smoking crack right before he came on.
Posted by: redwench
come on, who uses floppies anymore, except to boot for a reformat? and even then, most people boot from cd.
oh, i dont think it was crack. i suspect it was acid.
Posted by: nocode
 Quote:
Originally posted by SKYHN
I cant believe how much of a scene this is causing. I saw this on CNN last night, and they were making a big deal about it. One guy said that dell was making a "Fatal mistake" and would be "cutting off a large portion of the market".
What I think they didnt show, was that guy smoking crack right before he came on.
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well, i think "Fatal mistake" is exagerating just a Wee bit! , but his statement may be valid to a much smaller degree than Fatal.
Example:.........How many people are still running Windows 98 on computers that are completely capable of running XP? i mean come'on.......98 is Frickin Five years old for God sake, but some people still Refuse to accept Change and move on to bigger and better things.
my point is....there are many computer users out there that hold on dearly to Legacy items because they have so much invested in Old Stuff. i work with a guy who in my eyes is a Computer Genius, but he still is hesitant about switching to XP because he's afraid of how many things, hardware/software, that he has invested in over the years, that still works perfectly fine for him now, will not be compatable.
Now i know that a Floppy drive is a completly different thing than an OS, but the reaction can be similar due to people's unwillingness to change. just the idea of a computer with no floppy drive could make them not even consider a Dell.
i think it could have maybe a small impact on Dell's sales for a short time because they are the first company to start this phasing out of the floppy drive. How quickly other companies follw suit, computer/software/hardware makers will play a huge role in how much Dell's sales could possibly be affected.
My personal opinion on no Floppy..........i would have no problems having a computer with no Floppy drive, as long as i knew for sure that i was not gonna buy some new hardware, or software that came with a damn floppy.
i guess the only question now will be ....how long will it take for the floppy to be completely phased out. that amount of time IMO, may have some what of an impact on Dell, but deffinitely Not Fatal.
Posted by: Canis Lupus
People survived the disappearance of the 5 1/4" floppy disk ... they survived the apparent death of the typewriter ... they even survived the disappearance of the 8-track cassettes ...
They have more things to worry about than the death of the 3 1/2" floppy drive...
Posted by: EddieJ300
Yes the floppy is just about useless.... but alot of folks out there have device drivers or install files on floppy disks. Now when their new dell pc shows up with no floppy drive and they go to add hardware from their old pc (some stuff is just hard to let go of) they will spazz.
Too Funny!!!
Posted by: EddieJ300
I'm keeping my floppy just to have all of the bases covered. It's not like I have something different to put in that 3.5" drive bay.
Covering the bases I have....
* CD-Rom / DVD
* CDRW
* Zip 250 / 100
and I still have drive bays open.
Posted by: redwench
good god, all you have to do is copy the drivers or whatever to a cd. its not that difficult
Posted by: Canis Lupus
I think his point is ... how are you gonna copy the files from the floppy disk if you don't have a floppy drive to copy from 
Posted by: redwench
you do it on your old computer. anyone thats anal about saving drivers to disks has a burner. 
Posted by: Canis Lupus
Tedious, isn't it?
Posted by: redwench
hehe. changing comps is always tedious, at best. you know that, youre about to do it. although, come to think of it, if youre getting a new dell, you certainly wont need any drivers from your old comp, except for peripherals. which you could download easily.
down with floppies!
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