The Floppy Death

After the Apple G3, along with PCs, began shipping without the drives pre-installed the disks became virtually obsolete. However, the death of the format has only now become official with Sony’s decision. [...]

The 3.5 inch floppy was first introduced in 1981, and hit the height of its sales in 2000. [ via nydailynews]

i'm not sure why sony even announced the death of its 1.44mb carrier because until they had, i didn't realize the floppy disk was still around. it's like reading the news and finding out gary busey died-- i would have to pause and accept the surprise that he had not already died and then i'd have to wonder if i cared at all.

sure it's the pioneer of the portable memory front, but that doesn't change the fact it's better off one of those things that die quietly with no particular mention of it.

i actually know the man who invented the floppy disk-- and by "know" i mean i used to smoke weed and debate intensely with his grandson-- but the story goes that he received a $100 bonus for the creation before ibm pulled a "you invented it at work and therefore it belongs to us."

and while i believe the $100 was a total slap in the face, i do also find it sad and hilarious that the inventor out-lived the invention.

my fondest memory of the floppy disk was sitting down with brian and chris and labeling thirty of them pornographically. some would read, "XXX" but others were more in the horse-porn direction and they'd "accidentally" fall out of backpacks or grocery bags in public.

people were always pretty hesitant to help us pick them up.

oh well, the disk had a good run-- longer than the zip disk. and a lot of cool came out of it, anyway.