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

[vacavalier]

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.

In a warped kind of way, I miss those hands-on days of PC ownership.

 

[randyh121]

People make fun of japan for this but the US literally has the same thing, just with fax machines

 

[JeffreyP55]

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).

I was just just trying to see if I could get the antique to work. I will never go back to XP, Win 7 ever again. It was fun to hear the old mechanical noise. However it has no place for me personally. I still have working internal optical drives.

 

[Co BIY]

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

Do you stamp the signature with a custom carved "chop" made of elephant ivory ?

Otherwise those invoices are suspect.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Have them move to Hi-MD Mini-Disc.

There should be enough of those lying around in Japan.

1 GiB per Disc isn't half bad for moving documents that you can easily compress.

 

[MisterZ]

I thought that was a JDM van at first glance.

 

[PiersPlowman]

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.

If you use a magnet to erase a floppy, it's pretty much dead, Jim. Won't even format without spitting out CRC checksum errors by the bucket load.

 

[TechLurker]

If you use a magnet to erase a floppy, it's pretty much dead, Jim. Won't even format without spitting out CRC checksum errors by the bucket load.

That's what I meant. Could be hard deleted to prevent ever discovering that cheating and porn were on it.

Granted, I could have worded it better, where it was reusable first, then hard-deleted if about to get caught.

 

[stonecarver]

No longer a 'catastrophe,' Japan's cybersecurity could still improve

Many firms use outdated technology and systems that are not as secure but are hesitant to replace them.

www.japantimes.co.jp

I wonder if this was the last nail in the coffin for Japan's use of the floppie

 

[parkerthon]

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

Their culture is such a juxtaposition. On one hand they love new tech so much they are happy to be guinea pigs for whatever hair-brained tech idea someone cooks up, on other hand they still require floppies and physical paper and other weird relics. Perhaps it’s nostalgia for the 80’s and early 90’s maybe? That was about when they peaked as far as influence on global trade goes.

 

[parkerthon]

In a warped kind of way, I miss those hands-on days of PC ownership.

I do not. It was ridiculously annoying to get DOS games to load. Memory optimization sucked. It was still cool at the time and I have nostalgia, but it’s not comparable to enjoying what we have now.

 

[why_wolf]

Do you stamp the signature with a custom carved "chop" made of elephant ivory ?

Otherwise those invoices are suspect.

No, in blood. For the DNA confirmation.