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date: Sat 23 Dec 2023 06:44:43 PM PST                                   //
subj: my favorite storage medium, 3.5 inch floppy disc                  //
auth: bbsing                                                            //
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?? DO YOU LIKE 3.5 FLOPPY DISKETTES ??
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       |.|_D O O M________|H|
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       |   |   |  _     |   |
       |   |   | | |    |   |
       |   |   | |_|    | V | mga
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^                                                                         ^
^ My favorite storage medium for the computer is the 3.5 inch floppy      ^
^ disk. Its really one of the coolest forms of media.                     ^
^                                                                         ^
^ 5 1/4 inch floppy isn't bad, but the durability isn't the same          ^
^ as those cool little 3 1/2 inch floppy drive cases.                     ^
^                                                                         ^
^ The loud click and slide the drive makes as it engages to the           ^
^ disk and opens the dust protector. Then the whirling and humming        ^
^ noise it makes as the computer locates the sector for reading or        ^
^ writing to. Its all there, and there is this thing that is              ^
^ happening.                                                              ^
^                                                                         ^
^ I think one of the reasons for which I find 3.5 floppy medium so neat   ^
^ is how easy it was to trade and transport information. The disk         ^
^ itself fits nicely into a shirt pocket. There used to be floppy         ^
^ envelopes for mail transport with a circle over a magnet.               ^
^                                                                         ^
^ The ubiquity of the drive itself was awesome. Almost all                ^
^ computers had at least one 3.5 inch floppy disk drive. My 386sx         ^
^ had a 5.25 inch and a 3.5 inch flpy, but from about 1990 into the       ^
^ late 2000's systems had that 3.5 inch floppy drive.                     ^
^                                                                         ^
^ AOL used to send in the mail their AOL program on a floppy.             ^
^ It would appear enough that I rarely had to buy a new floppy            ^
^ disk. There were so many of them and people who really were not         ^
^ warez traders usually were ready to discard those extra AOL             ^
^ floppy discs.                                                           ^
^                                                                         ^
^ /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////   ^
^ DOOM on floppy:                                                    //   ^
^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------   ^
^                                                                         ^
^ Long ago when the video game doom came out, it started as               ^
^ shareware. So a portion of the game was free. Basically the             ^
^ first episode of the entire game. The game was a really hot item        ^
^ at the time, and the local BBSes phone lines were usually tied          ^
^ up with downloaders.  Downloading was not so easy back then.            ^
^ With our modem connected to a phone line, at any moment the             ^
^ connection was susceptible to interruption by a family member           ^
^ picking the phone handset while the ZMODEM transfer was in              ^
^ progress. Back in the day BBS systems used a time bank type             ^
^ system so a single user couldn't dominate a phone line into the         ^
^ BBS. So each call into a BBS had a set number of minutes and if         ^
^ a specific file or batch of files calculated to exceed your             ^
^ allotted time for the day, it was impossible to download the            ^
^ file[s], unless you were had some saved time in the BBS time            ^
^ bank. Some BBSes also used download to upload ratios that might         ^
^ have also prevented a user from downloading more files. My              ^
^ brother and I did way more downloading than uploaded, so usually        ^
^ we didn't not have a favorable ratio.  These issues were causing        ^
^ my brother and I problem.... mainly we were not able to obtain          ^
^ the game.                                                               ^
^                                                                         ^
^ Luckly I had a drivers license, and with parents car-keys in            ^
^ hand and floppy diskettes in pocket my brother and I set out to         ^
^ a local computer store hoping doom would be there to demo the           ^
^ performance of the computers for sale. We found a store                 ^
^ showcasing their systems with doom's demo mode. We arrived with         ^
^ a few floppy disks, I asked a sales associated if we could copy         ^
^ the doom game. Since it was shareware, we were given the go             ^
^ ahead. I slid the 3.5 floppy into the computer B: drive, exited         ^
^ the game, entered the DOS prompt and proceeded to copy doom onto        ^
^ the floppy. That night by brother and I had a blast in a new 3D         ^
^ virtual world. I still have those floppy discs with doom on them        ^
^ to this day.                                                            ^
^                                                                         ^
^ Just about every IBM compatible system had a 3.5 inch floppy at         ^
^ the time, and this proceeded to be the case for years. The              ^
^ security of the disk and drive was minimal. It made for a very          ^
^ easy transport tool to share information. The disk medium itself        ^
^ was guaranteed for life, usually. I have yet to see a true              ^
^ failure of the medium.  I'm sure others have stories about it,          ^
^ but I haven't seen a well cared for 3.5 floppy drive fail.              ^
^ Compared to CD-ROM or DVD-ROM, the floppy failure rate is far less.     ^
^ This very document is stored on a floppy disk that is from the          ^
^ early to mid 1990's.                                                    ^
^                                                                         ^
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