News The floppy disk refuses to die in Japan - laws that forced the continued use of floppies have finally hit the chopping block

[Admin]

Floppy disks can finally make their way to the land of eternal slumber. Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has abolished any requirement for applicants to use this ancient magnetic media when filing official documents.

The floppy disk refuses to die in Japan - laws that forced the continued use of floppies have finally hit the chopping block : Read more

 

[vern72]

I can't imagine how many floppy disks it would take to store even a single modern document.

Besides, what can we use as the save icon now? 😆

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

I feel for the people who are going to be tasked to now move all the information stored on floppy disks and CDs into the cloud.

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

I can't imagine how many floppy disks it would take to store even a single modern document.

Besides, what can we use as the save icon now? 😆

Dozens of Word, Excel, and PDF files can fit on a 1.44mb disk if they're all text. According to Office-Watch:

Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” is a famously large book at 565,000 words. In Microsoft Word, it becomes about 1,800 pages in a 1.2MB .docx file.

And a typical PDF scan (at 300x300) or save-as-PDF is 100kb or less typically, so multiple documents could easily fit onto one diskette, though I imagine official procedure was to limit them to probably one per diskette for loss prevention.

 

[CelicaGT]

Timely article. Just found a box of unused floppies in the basement whilst looking for other useless junk. Unlike the article picture though, just boring black.

 

[why_wolf]

Ah Japan. Our Japanese customer at work is demanding we send them signed paper copies of our invoices now.

 

[GustavoVanni]

Hey Mark, there's a typo here "720MB DS/DD", it should be 720KB or 720K.

 

[ombudsmandem]

Floppy Sensei must live on

 

[Neilbob]

I fondly remember the shelves of eye-burningly, brightly coloured floppy disks. It was almost enough to make up for them going squiffy if they passed within 2 miles of the magnet inside a large speaker.

Okay, maybe a slight exaggeration there...

Edit: Downloading Baldur's Gate 3 on Steam was tiresome with my internet. Perhaps a version on 1.44mb floppy disk would have been more convenient. Would only have needed about 90,000 of them.

 

[greenreaper]

...a typo here "720MB DS/DD", it should be 720KB or 720K.

That's why there's a premium! 💾💸

 

[Lamarr the Strelok]

IDK how much data a floppy can hold but the floppy icon has been used for saving games in a lot of games over the years. It's sorta cool to me for some reason.

 

[DSzymborski]

The story is a bit less exciting than the headline, sadly. It's basically the result of a review of specific ordinances, which was called for in a 2019 bill, and it's basically recording media as a group, which could *include* floppy disks. The reality is that where applicable, we're likely talking about mostly optical media rather than a government with billions of floppy disks hanging around.

 

[fireaza]

Floppy disks can finally make their way across the digital equivalent of the River Styx and reach the land of eternal slumber.

Or in-keeping with the Japan theme, the Sanzu River.

I'd say that this is largely a government thing. I moved to Japan 10 years ago, and never saw floppy disks in use. I did see the common use of VGA and Windows XP though.

 

[OneMoreUser]

Lots of countries use ancient tech still, like for example checks for payment, paper forms to file taxes, fax machines to transfer documents... and in every country there is also still money in physical form being used.

 

[OneMoreUser]

The story is a bit less exciting than the headline, sadly. It's basically the result of a review of specific ordinances, which was called for in a 2019 bill, and it's basically recording media as a group, which could *include* floppy disks. The reality is that where applicable, we're likely talking about mostly optical media rather than a government with billions of floppy disks hanging around.

Not the first time that TH uses a headline which is more tabloid than fact driven.

 

[FoxtrotMichael-1]

I bought more 3.5” DD floppies (new old stock) after reading this article. Yes, many of us still use them on vintage computers. There’s also a thriving scene of releasing Vaporwave albums on 3.5” floppy. I have multiple unopened new old stock 5.25” DD floppies as well. It’s sad that they are eventually going away for good.

 

[Amdlova]

That's a way of secure data... last time I need a drive to read a floppy disk need seven drive and build a machine with floppy cable. That's a pain!

 

[TechLurker]

Floppies were how rich, nerdy boys shared their low-res pron "stash" alongside the homework answers way back when writable CDs were still too expensive to buy in bulk. Helped that they could be erased by magnets too, to delete evidence, and could be reused a number of times.

 

[OneMoreUser]

Edit: Downloading Baldur's Gate 3 on Steam was tiresome with my internet. Perhaps a version on 1.44mb floppy disk would have been more convenient. Would only have needed about 90,000 of them.

I think the biggest game I installed back then was Wing Commander III (or maybe it WC IV). As I recall it was 20x1.44 MB 3½ discs of which some was a special audio package. Install time must have been like 30 minutes or even more.

At first when CD's for data became a thing it was sort of a selling point for games, partly because it meant quick installation but also because it hinted it was a big game.

The later however wasn't always the case, like for example there was a racing game I got an assignment to review that got me suspicious as I knew the game from the Amiga where if would fit one one 3½disc. So I dog into what was on the CD and it turned out had they wanted, they could have compressed the thing and put it on a 720 Kb disc.

 

[gdmaclew]

I remember when my copy of Windows 95 came on 12 floppy disks and one of them was corrupt.
Had to take the whole bunch back to the store and get another set.

 

[COLGeek]

Another bygone era reminder in terms of tech obsolescence.

This article is a reminder that I need to did out my USB floppy drive and copy two old programs to the ol' home server.

 

[JeffreyP55]

Floppy disks can finally make their way to the land of eternal slumber. Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has abolished any requirement for applicants to use this ancient magnetic media when filing official documents.

The floppy disk refuses to die in Japan - laws that forced the continued use of floppies have finally hit the chopping block : Read more

I have a USB 1.44m. Had to tweak windows 11 some way get it to work, but I don't remember the mods were. It just one of those, "Yes, it is running, now what things?" Just totally useless in 2024.

 

[ngtwolf]

I have a USB 1.44m. Had to tweak windows 11 some way get it to work, but I don't remember the mods were. It just one of those, "Yes, it is running, now what things?" Just totally useless in 2024.

For regular folks, you're correct.. there's no need to use floppies for anything going forward and there hasn't been for a long time.

However, floppies are still used in the vintage computer hobby. There's a number of new solutions that allow old systems to utilize newer medium, but not all systems have solutions yet and so floppies are still needed. Floppy drives are also still needed to archive historical medium (usually found in attics) by reading in the disks and saving the data to a modern solution. For those needing to read/write floppies on modern computers for archival or vintage computer purposes, look into getting a greaseweazil which are about $35 and it can read/write many formats of floppy disks. i wouldn't bother with those USB floppy drives, they have very limited use cases that don't really exist anymore (writing a generic 1.44mb pc floppy disk that can usually only be read on other machines with a similar 1.44 drive).

 

[ngtwolf]

The later however wasn't always the case, like for example there was a racing game I got an assignment to review that got me suspicious as I knew the game from the Amiga where if would fit one one 3½disc. So I dog into what was on the CD and it turned out had they wanted, they could have compressed the thing and put it on a 720 Kb disc.

That's how modern games are. There's almost nothing on those disks, other than a link that downloads everything from the internet. People think they're buying a physical copy of a game that they can play forever, but in reality it's just a link to the store that once the servers are shut down, won't work anymore. It's a bit sad that the younger generation won't be able to go back to revisit their childhood games because they won't exist after those consoles and the stores that go with them are gone.

 

[ngtwolf]

Floppies were how rich, nerdy boys shared their low-res pron "stash" alongside the homework answers way back when writable CDs were still too expensive to buy in bulk. Helped that they could be erased by magnets too, to delete evidence, and could be reused a number of times.

You should bring this up in your next therapy session.