So many floppies, so little time.....
Jun. 22nd, 2008 11:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poltr1So, I pulled out the boxes of 3 1/2" floppies I had, and estimated that I must have between 500 and 1000 floppies.
Where did I get them all? I purchased them at computer shows, AOL used to mail them out (before they switched over to sending CD-ROMs), and some had been thrown out at a previous workplace. I won't have time to peel the labels and wipe all the disks. What I'm doing right now is erasing or moving files from floppy to hard disk, and marking out the labels with a black Sharpie marker. I have a bulk eraser I can use if I really want to wipe the contents of a disk, but then I'd have to reformat the disk.
After I'm all done, I'll probably keep no more than 100, which should be plenty. The rest will get freecycled. This will be my cleanup project for the next few weeks.
I wish I could send some of these blank diskettes back 20 years to myself circa 1988. I could have saved many boxes of paper. But the transfer connection betwen mainframe and PC was SLOW by today's standards. And floppies were rather expensive. (But which would have been more expensive -- the computer paper or the floppy disks?)
I used to archive stuff on floppies; as hard drive storage was at a premium. Now hard drive storage is plentiful. But I'll still burn achival stuff onto optical media (CD-R, DVD-R, DVD+R).
Where did I get them all? I purchased them at computer shows, AOL used to mail them out (before they switched over to sending CD-ROMs), and some had been thrown out at a previous workplace. I won't have time to peel the labels and wipe all the disks. What I'm doing right now is erasing or moving files from floppy to hard disk, and marking out the labels with a black Sharpie marker. I have a bulk eraser I can use if I really want to wipe the contents of a disk, but then I'd have to reformat the disk.
After I'm all done, I'll probably keep no more than 100, which should be plenty. The rest will get freecycled. This will be my cleanup project for the next few weeks.
I wish I could send some of these blank diskettes back 20 years to myself circa 1988. I could have saved many boxes of paper. But the transfer connection betwen mainframe and PC was SLOW by today's standards. And floppies were rather expensive. (But which would have been more expensive -- the computer paper or the floppy disks?)
I used to archive stuff on floppies; as hard drive storage was at a premium. Now hard drive storage is plentiful. But I'll still burn achival stuff onto optical media (CD-R, DVD-R, DVD+R).
