Slightly OT - What to do with old 3.5 floppy discs?

You should offer them on your local free items list.

There are people around who still use them.

Preparing for a move and significant downsizing, I am going through my old disks and finding about half are no longer useable.

Seriously if you are into ham radio you know that as of Jan 1, 2013 it will be illegal for nonhams to use wideband (25kHz channel spacing) two way radios in the US.

This means there are lots of radios coming on the surplus market which were made in the 1990's. They are programed using DOS software, which will not run on a modern computer, or under any version of Windows.

Most people using these computers use floppy disks to install software and transfer data.

There are also people who collect old computers, such as Apple II, Comodore 64, early Macs, etc. Some use 5 1/4 disks, some 3.5.

Geoff.

Store them next to your 8" and 5 1/4" floppies to remind your great grandchildren how wonderful it was before Microsoft unleashed the bloatware known as Windows.

I'm afraid it may have been lost, but for a time one of my favorite examples was a 360K floppy that contained the essential DOS 2.1 files to boot a computer, a complete WordStar installation (including SpellCheck and MailMerge), and still had space for an 80K document.

PlainBill

That depends on the band.

The FCC has just announced that it is going to waive the "You must narrow-band your systems" requirement, for licensees whose systems are operating in the "T" block (the 470-512 MHz range).

These licensees are going to have to vacate this band within the next ten years or so anyhow... and the FCC has agreed that it doesn't make sense for the licensees to have to buy new narrow-band systems that they'd have to abandon after only a few years.

True! People are resorting to the use of old junker AT-bus PCs, or running the DOS softare under Qemu or a similar virtual machine (often with a "slow down, damnit!" tweak).

I am still looking for the 5-1/4" floppy BIOS setup disk for my first NEC 286 APC IV computer. Anyone got one?

Colin

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Still have a pair pf AMD Athlon XP 3200 machines that can run MS-DOS

G=B2

...and some 8".

Makes a good coaster for your coffee/tea/beverage of preference.

Isaac

I hope to purchase a new computer in the next six months, and it will definitely have a 3.5" drive.

A floppy is a good way to create an additional backup. And I have old software I might want to install on the machine.

I work in a machine shop with some 1990's vintage milling machines. The quickest way to load programs into them is with a 3.5" floppy. Since they used custom controllers, there is no easy path to upgrade to anything else. Fortunately I have a stock pile of old disks that had been used for backups, so I don't fear running out any time soon. I'm more worried about someday not being able to get a motherboard that I can plug a drive into.

Not here. I drink coffe out of a beer stein.

Jonesy

Scrounge the MAC lists for USB floppy drives. I got one with a first generation iMac when the owner upgraded.

Geoff.

There are replacement 'drives' that use USB memory sticks for some machine tools. Not cheap, but they have a menu system to allow you to store multiple programs on one stick. Some are available on Ebay. They plug into the existing floppy drive data & power cables and operate just like the original drive.

Just buy an external USB floppy drive.

Good suggestion. I could use it on my notebook, too.

Someone from The Scrap Exchange in NC showed me how to make one into the Enterprise. I wish I could recall how she did it.

On Thu, 3 May 2012 14:36:43 +0000 (UTC), David Lesher put finger to keyboard and composed:

- Franc Zabkar

Keep an eye on Ebay. I've seen well known brands go for $20 in sealed boxes. :)

With plain-brown wrappers. (I almost wrote "rappers"!)

I already ordered a new-in-box iomega for $25.

Verbatim had a double-speed drive for $40, but that's too much. There are no-namos going for $4 or so, but that's taking too much of a chance.