Did you use Floppy Disk/Diskettes?

[Luke94]

Well not any more no more honestly speaking.

 

[Veho]

I used tapes

(But yeah I used diskettes too.)

 

[RedColoredStars]

Cassettes are not bad as you might think. As long as you use a good-quality deck then it will sound amazing.

I will strongly disagree with that statement. The best cassette deck on the planet can't eliminate tape hiss without some form of noise reduction, which in turn removes more than just the hiss. Cassettes were one of the worst formats for audio to ever exist.

 

[sarkwalvein]

These are the ones I used, that predated the mini ones pictured in the OP. You could literally cut a notch on the opposite edge to make them double sided.

Those are the ones I used when I was a kid, 160KB single side disks (but to be honest they were more like 170KB when you formatted them in the C64).
I also used them in my XT, but then they were 320KB double side.
I also used them in my 286 later, the HD variant of 1.2MB, and I remember there was a weird non-standard formatting program where you could push the disks up to some 1.8MB and they would take it happily (and then fail quite early).

Yes, I used audio cassette based storage before that in the C64 (but really it was for a couple of months, it was unbearably slow, so I guess I was very happy as a kid when we upgraded to a 1541 floppy drive where games only took a couple of minutes to load).

I also "had contact" with 8" floppy disks, they still had some of these old disks in a computer system they used for payroll in the first place I worked at (high-school time internship)... weird stuff back in 1999 even, I never used those myself anyway.

 

[SylverReZ]

I will strongly disagree with that statement. The best cassette deck on the planet can't eliminate tape hiss without some form of noise reduction, which in turn removes more than just the hiss. Cassettes were one of the worst formats for audio to ever exist.

What do you mean by the 'best cassette deck'? Don't you mean all of them? I agree that not all cassette decks are good, but it depends; people often frequently criticize about one deck being better over the other. Hiss can be reduced, but not completely (unlike those so-called 'audiophiles specialists' my ass). Some decks incorporate Dolby noise reduction, which softens and decreases noise. There is no way to remove the noise, as with how a cassette player works, is by passing a magnetic force through an electromagnet which results in static.

 

[RedColoredStars]

What do you mean by the 'best cassette deck'? Don't you mean all of them? I agree that not all cassette decks are good; people often frequently criticize about one deck being better over the other. Hiss can be reduced, but not completely (unlike those so-called 'audiophiles specialists' my ass). Some decks incorporate Dolby noise reduction, which softens and decreases noise. There is no way to remove the noise, as with how a cassette player works, is by passing a magnetic force through an electromagnet which results in static.

You stated "As long as you use a good-quality deck then it will sound amazing." I was referring to that when I said not even the "best cassette deck". Nothing makes cassettes sound amazing. Not a good quality deck and not noise reduction.

 

[DragonMals]

I'm not born in the 1990s, but I do remember touching and using these back when I was young.

 

[CMDreamer]

I've used those 5-1/4" and 3-1/2" floppy disks with a very limited capacity, back then they were very handy to take my info -almost- everywhere.

Actually I still have a brand new Verbatim HD 3-1/2" 10 pcs box somewhere, and some more that -hopefully- still are storing some information, but don't have any drive available to retrieve it from them.

I remember using one of those 5-1/4" for storing Gorilla.BAS game, it was a very nice game programmed in Basic.

 

[SylverReZ]

I've used those 5-1/4" and 3-1/2" floppy disks with a very limited capacity, back then they were very handy to take my info -almost- everywhere.

Actually I still have a brand new Verbatim HD 3-1/2" 10 pcs box somewhere, and some more that -hopefully- still are storing some information, but don't have any drive available to retrieve it from them.

I remember using one of those 5-1/4" for storing Gorilla.BAS game, it was a very nice game programmed in Basic.

I suggest backing up those disks if they have any important data to you as they're starting to rot away.

 

[CMDreamer]

I suggest backing up those disks if they have any important data to you as they're starting to rot away.

Thanks for your suggestion, and I hope they're not rotten just yet, but will try to get an external floppy drive soon.

I still have some installation disks for C++ (v4.5 if I'm not wrong) and Clipper programming languages (I really loved using them).

 

[sarkwalvein]

Thanks for your suggestion, and I hope they're not rotten just yet, but will try to get an external floppy drive soon.

I still have some installation disks for C++ (v4.5 if I'm not wrong) and Clipper programming languages (I really loved using them).

To be honest, talking about old C++... I believe there was nothing more convenient out there for a kid to learn C/C++ than the old Borland Turbo C IDEs. The way they packed IDE and documentation all together and get that shit working even on an old stinky 80286 was amazing, the most accessible help/training system ever, it really could be used by a kid to learn the language.

PS: Well, the later (free) DJGPP really did something similar, quite good to be honest.

 

[JaapDaniels]

i used:

tapes, diskettes, CD, DVD, ram-disk, blueray, thumbdrive, SD, CF, you name it i used it to transport data.

 

[sarkwalvein]

i used:
View attachment 434402
tapes, diskettes, CD, DVD, ram-disk, blueray, thumbdrive, SD, CF, you name it i used it to transport data.

I guess you also used the horrible parallel-port based 100MB IOMEGA ZIP Drives.

That stuff was so slow, yet somewhat practical, I remember a friend had one of those back around 1996 or 1997, all kind of stuff including SNES/Genesis ROMs came and went between us using those disks (actually I think he only ever bought one disk)... But soon enough came affordable CD burners and the IOMEGA ZIP went bye bye almost as suddenly as it came to be... Well, then CD and optical media practically died for storage, not sure how much longer we will keep storing stuff in any type of "disk" at all, suddenly I feel old.

 

[slaphappygamer]

I did, when I was in middle school. We had a computer lab. During zero period, we could go in early and play games on the floppy. There was a table that the games were strewn about. You snagged what you wanted to play, it was first come first served. I liked whatever game it was that you pilot a plane and take off from a carrier. It was sidescrolling. I forget the name. There was also a TV and a teacher brought in an NES and someone else brought a multi tap. We played Ironman Ivan Stewart off road most mornings.

 

[CMDreamer]

To be honest, talking about old C++... I believe there was nothing more convenient out there for a kid to learn C/C++ than the old Borland Turbo C IDEs. The way they packed IDE and documentation all together and get that shit working even on an old stinky 80286 was amazing, the most accessible help/training system ever, it really could be used by a kid to learn the language.

PS: Well, the later (free) DJGPP really did something similar, quite good to be honest.

Almost forgot about Borland Turbo C & IDE. Never had the chance to use it, but many friends did and they said wonders about it.

My programming journey started with Basic, Clipper (databases) and C Language, so no objects at all for me back then, it was all functional. Later I started using C++ 4.5 (or something like that, as I can remember clearly), but I really loved it, even though my nightmare were those pointers. Then Java came into the scene and I learnt about it, but didn't used it as much as I could've wanted. Could be an Android programmer by now, but oh well, things happen for a reason I think.

I'd like to learn Python and some Cobol, Fortran and some others. Sadly life gets in the middle, so it's more complicated than before, but not impossible to achieve I believe.

 

[Dust2dust]

I will strongly disagree with that statement. The best cassette deck on the planet can't eliminate tape hiss without some form of noise reduction, which in turn removes more than just the hiss. Cassettes were one of the worst formats for audio to ever exist.

But on the other side of the coin, they were great for music piracy. So many cassettes my friend did for me from his great records collection. I remember back then hearing some news item about the music industry wanting to do something to prevent music piracy from cassettes taping. They hadn't seen nothing yet... mp3s were just around the corner.

 

[Jayro]

With the advent of plentiful GOTEK drives and their prices slowly coming down, floppies can die a peaceful death once and for all. The Gotek can erven be hard-modded to work in the Amiga with no issues, and it's not even difficult to do.

 

[Rolfie]

i’ve used them in the past. some music equipment still necessitates using them even- i don’t have much of that stuff personally tho, it’s mostly a friend that does

 

[Lostbhoy]

I used tapes

View attachment 434132


(But yeah I used diskettes too.)

That looks almost exactly like my C64 tape deck from memory!!

I had a few floppies with my C64 but mainly tapes were the order of the day. Especially since my local library would let them out like books... Only to be returned an hour later after playing and popping them in the hifi on hi speed dubbing wink wink

 

[JaapDaniels]

I guess you also used the horrible parallel-port based 100MB IOMEGA ZIP Drives.

That stuff was so slow, yet somewhat practical, I remember a friend had one of those back around 1996 or 1997, all kind of stuff including SNES/Genesis ROMs came and went between us using those disks (actually I think he only ever bought one disk)... But soon enough came affordable CD burners and the IOMEGA ZIP went bye bye almost as suddenly as it came to be... Well, then CD and optical media practically died for storage, not sure how much longer we will keep storing stuff in any type of "disk" at all, suddenly I feel old.

Now i hate to disapoint you, but i never had a zip-drive. simply because i already had a CD-rewriter back then, i only heard of zip-drives when i already had a DVD-writer.
We'll always use flexible storage drives, the form however will change. i put my money for now in MicroSD and thumbdrive, but i think it's about time for a new one to come.