Dell dropping floppy drives...

[James_F]

http://biz.yahoo.com/ibd/030205/tech_1.html

We are on our way to a legacy free system.

[Mike123abc]

I use floppy disks less and less. They are still usefull every now and then, but I could probably live with just one and not need one in every machine.

[jeffwtux]

How can they say that parallel ports are obsolete when half of the printers on sale at any computer store will be parallel port printers. Plus, probably half of all palm devices(which are as hip as you can get) use the serial port.

[James_F]

But printers also have USB ports. I can't remember the last time I saw a printer without one.

[gcutler]

I can live with it as long as it is an option. I still use floppys but the ability to make a bootable CD-R(W) of my own would make the need for a floppy less important.

But what about applying firmware or bios upgrades. Without a bootable floppy that would be harder, but if they gave an ISO file to make a bootable CD-R(W) again the need would be lessened.

I just got rid of my last SCSI adapter which had a very old Scanner connected to it. between USB and Firewire, I hope to not have to worry for a long time (I still have a printer with parallel port, although it supports USB) and my Palm Pilot is old enough to use a serial cable.

[firephoto]

If your computer won't have an parallel port then I would hope you wouldn't buy a printer that needed to hook to one. ;)

I can't seem to get my floppy's to work half the time for some reason. They sit for 5 years in a drawer collecting dust and crumbs and when I need a disk they never work. lol
I think I've spent more on floppy drives than disks over the last 5 years or so.

[James_F]

I saw on a newsgroup dell was going to release all BIOS and firmware upgrades with a CD-R support. I guess it will be an ISO file. :shrug:

[Steve Mehs]

I can't remember the last time I ever used a floppy. I always packet write to CD-RWs, or if I need to take files from home to school or visa versa, I upload files to my Yahoo Briefcase and download them when needed.

[gcutler]

Originally posted by James_F
I saw on a newsgroup dell was going to release all BIOS and firmware upgrades with a CD-R support. I guess it will be an ISO file. :shrug:

Great, I just thought of the last Bios Upgrade I did, I had a spindle of 100 CD-Rs sitting on my desk but spent 1/2 hour looking for a spare Floppy that was needed :D

[James_F]

I know the feeling. :lol:

[Jacob S]

Do the quality of the music or other files become worse and worse (just like VHS vcr tapes) the more you use them?

[Steve Mehs]

The simple answer is No