Even 25 years ago, I was scared crapless of my floppies failing. Many a BBS backup got corrupted.


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On 25 Apr 2024, Utopian Galt said the following...

Even 25 years ago, I was scared crapless of my floppies failing. Many a BBS backup got corrupted.

yeah.. nostalgia goggles are pretty strong..

i used to write a big x on them and use them as coasters until eventually
junk cds took that role.

it was kind of nice for a while though when aol was basically giving away free disks.. carefully peel off the sticker and you could make a new label out of cut-up VHS tape labels hehe

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Even 25 years ago, I was scared crapless of my floppies
failing. Many a BBS backup got corrupted.

I haven't forgotten corrupted floppies either, though I think it's an example of "the more things change, the more they stay the same" in some ways - the modern replacement of floppy disks being USB flash storage. Flash storage is simultaneously one of the most useful products in tech and also one of the most cursed.

There's important tricks done by the flash controller (invisible to us), some may have better implementations than other controllers - these "tricks" exist to cover up the inherent unreliability of flash memory storage (specifically NAND memory which is the type used for mass storage). Data is shifted between blocks and a certain level of errors are expected (and correctible by the memory controller), but one too many errors and a block is lost. Write to the same block of flash memory too many times and it wears out - so flash storage implements wear leveling to reduce the creation of bad blocks. But that doesn't mean bad blocks don't happen, it just means they usually take longer to develop. Flash storage is a game of "errors will always occur, but we're pretty sure we can stay ahead of them with algorithms." (ECC error correcting codes are pretty incredible.)

I guess this is just my long-winded way of saying "USB flash disks are the modern equivalent of floppy disks, both in portability and in unreliability."

Though I gotta admit that USB flash disks tend to survive longer in a pocket than a floppy disk would. Once the little metal cover got bent and ripped off, it was all over.


Chris/akacastor

--- Maximus 3.01
* Origin: Another Millennium - Canada - another.tel (21:1/162)

Even 25 years ago, I was scared crapless of my floppies failing. Many a BBS backup got corrupted.

They were great for sneakernet. I had the tape drive for backups though.

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
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Even 25 years ago, I was scared crapless of my floppies failing. Many a BB backup got corrupted.

That's why I bought a cd burner when I first saw them ... best $600 I spent, and $20 to 5 discs.

... Rumour: NT means Not Tested

--- Renegade v1.35α/DOS
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Re: Re: Floppy Disks are overrated but cool
By: Exodus to Utopian Galt on Thu Apr 25 2024 03:56 pm

Even 25 years ago, I was scared crapless of my floppies failing. Many a
BB
backup got corrupted.

That's why I bought a cd burner when I first saw them ... best $600 I spent, and $20 to 5 discs.

I've always seen CD-Rs and floppy disks a bit differently, since a CD-R can only be burned once. I've only tried using a re-writeable CD (CD-RW) once, and the data started to became corrupt after only a month or two, so I never trusted CD-RWs again.

Nightfox

I left a floppy, at the time a hard disk, in the trunk of my moms car on a summer day. Had save game data on it I wanted to bring back from a friends house, lost it all. Never left anything electronic or related in a car ever again.


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
---
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I've always seen CD-Rs and floppy disks a bit differently, since a CD-R can only be burned once. I've only tried using a re-writeable CD (CD-RW) once, and the data started to became corrupt after only a month or two, so I neve trusted CD-RWs again.

I don't think I EVER used an -RW in cd or dvd ..... never trusted that.

... I'm dangerous when I know what I'm doing.

--- Renegade v1.35α/DOS
* Origin: The Titantic BBS Telnet - ttb.rgbbs.info (21:1/144)

i used to write a big x on them and use them as coasters until eventually junk cds took that role.

i hated those cds they are a waste of plastic

it was kind of nice for a while though when aol was basically giving
away free disks.. carefully peel off the sticker and you could make a
new label out of cut-up VHS tape labels hehe

yeah i have some of those disks! :D

--mary4 (Victoria Crenshaw) the 286 enthusiast

... Redundant book title: DOS For Dummies

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it was kind of nice for a while though when aol was basically giving
away free disks.. carefully peel off the sticker and you could make a
new label out of cut-up VHS tape labels hehe

yeah i have some of those disks! :D

Those are great to have in a collection - authentic re-used AOL floppy disks! Truly historic artifacts. :)


Chris/akacastor


--- Maximus 3.01
* Origin: Another Millennium - Canada - another.tel (21:1/162)

Those are great to have in a collection - authentic re-used AOL floppy disks! Truly historic artifacts. :)

You laugh!

I had a guy at the office showing me a box of unused 3.5's and they were translucent colored plastic.... drool....
I was trying to copy some material to an old diskette here and kept hitting bad disks. I would have loved to have my stash of re-purposed AOL I can remember thinking man I wish I could rewrite the CD's they sent too!
I think I lost my IOmega drive this past year finally. I mean, it's not like I had a parallel port for it or any ZIP100's left around to use. That was almost as satisfying as slamming a cart into the player at the radio station.

--------------------------------
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zip disks and drives are pretty cool. too bad it is propietary

--mary4 (Victoria Crenshaw) the 286 enthusiast

... It said "insert disk #3", but only two will fit...

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