“The system is currently working just fine, but we know that with each increasing year, risk of data degradation on the floppy disks increases and that at some point there will be a catastrophic failure,” Tumlin told ABC7.
Have they literally been using the same set of disks for decades? Surely they can just … make fresh copies on new disks? As far as I know, they’re still being made for specialized industries just like this.
Certainly, they should upgrade their system - this just doesn’t feel like the most important reason to do so.
There are many replacements for disk drives available where you can just use memory cards instead, and the old system won’t notice the difference. It’s odd that they used 5.25" floppies in 1998 in the first place, and odd that they don’t take this simple step to make the system more reliable and maintainable.
Yeah, I’m guessing there must be some archaic code in their system (probably undocumented and which no one understands) keeping them from taking that step. I’ve worked in the embroidery industry for quite a while and our machines used 3.5 inch floppies for years. We finally upgraded to a drop-in USB replacement like 5 years ago.
They are obviously of the “If-It-Ain’t-Broke-Don’t-Fix-It” people.
A once dominant group, they also age slowly, have the longest memories and loquaciously share them.
I read an article fairly recently stating that the last manufacturer of the 3.5 has stopped production back in 2011, and the 5.25 was over 5 years before that.
But supposedly there’s a little business called Athana that still makes them, along with other really old and way out of date media’s. Even 8" floppies.
Have they literally been using the same set of disks for decades? Surely they can just … make fresh copies on new disks? As far as I know, they’re still being made for specialized industries just like this.
Certainly, they should upgrade their system - this just doesn’t feel like the most important reason to do so.
There are many replacements for disk drives available where you can just use memory cards instead, and the old system won’t notice the difference. It’s odd that they used 5.25" floppies in 1998 in the first place, and odd that they don’t take this simple step to make the system more reliable and maintainable.
Yeah, I’m guessing there must be some archaic code in their system (probably undocumented and which no one understands) keeping them from taking that step. I’ve worked in the embroidery industry for quite a while and our machines used 3.5 inch floppies for years. We finally upgraded to a drop-in USB replacement like 5 years ago.
They are obviously of the “If-It-Ain’t-Broke-Don’t-Fix-It” people. A once dominant group, they also age slowly, have the longest memories and loquaciously share them.
New disks?
They haven’t made floppies for years now, iirc.
I read an article fairly recently stating that the last manufacturer of the 3.5 has stopped production back in 2011, and the 5.25 was over 5 years before that.
But supposedly there’s a little business called Athana that still makes them, along with other really old and way out of date media’s. Even 8" floppies.