Sony declares official end of the floppy
Summary
Sony announced Friday that it would end Japanese sales of the ancient storage medium in March 2011.
Topics
The days of the 3.5-inch floppy disk are now officially numbered.
Sony, which boasts 70 percent of the anemic market, announced Friday that it would end Japanese sales of the ancient storage medium in March 2011, according to a report in the Mainichi Daily newspaper.
The 3.5-inch floppy was a ubiquitous and necessary component for storing and transferring files between personal computers for nearly three decades. Sony pioneered the 3.5-inch floppy disk in 1981, eventually replacing the 5.25-inch floppy disk that had previously been the popular storage format.
Most other floppy disk manufacturers had long since pulled out of the market, and Sony itself has already ceased sales to most of its overseas markets.
For more on this story, read Sony delivers floppy disk's last rites on CNET News.
Talkback Most Recent of 12 Talkback(s)
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They make great roof tiles
I hoarded many free AOL disks so it went to a good cause.
Prognosticator26th Apr 2010 -
Thank God
Only one question: why not sooner!!!!!?????
Narg26th Apr 2010 -
Drop in sales not surprising, the amount is
Sony sold 47 million floppies in 2002, and 12 million in 2009 according to this article. When I started Uni in 2005 USB flash drives were all the rage, cheaper by volume than floppy disks at the time. So why on earth were 1 in 4 floppy users in 2002 still using it in 2009? I thought the figure would be much less, maybe 4.7 million. Unless Sony were one of the only companies still making them and took over sales for many other firms.
nphilipc26th Apr 2010 -
You Mean to Tell Me...
...that people are still buying these floppy drives?
Yam Digger26th Apr 2010 -
The use...
Believe me, a lot manufactures are still using it for critical things like recovering bad flashing BIOS.
I was forced to buy a Floppy USB drive in order to recovery my Aspire, and it was kinda expensive for an ancient floppy drive.
I hope they addopt pen drive asap (for things like that).
Gradius226th Apr 2010 -
RE: Sony declares official end of the floppy
I used to live in Zimbabwe...there and in South Africa we'd call the old 5.25 inch really floppy disks "Floppies" and the newer 3.5 inch disks "Stiffies". Made perfect sense. Then I came to Australia where "Stiffy" has another meaning entirely.....caused a few hilarious moments....
stn564@...26th Apr 2010 -
ASR for Windows Server might be the only reason.
Three Dell 1950's in my office don't even have the floppy for it anyway.
dave@...26th Apr 2010 -
RE: Sony declares official end of the floppy
Well, I suppose that all good things must come to an end some time. I still use a floppy drive in my computer regularly because I purchase a lot of older books that still have floppies in the back of them (instead of CDs) with data that runs just fine in the latest spreadsheet and statistical software.
cd527phd@...26th Apr 2010 -
RE: Sony declares official end of the floppy
I still have a LOT of stuff on my floppies... But let's move on... At least, no more bugs! May the FDFORMAT rest in peace
mgf_list26th Apr 2010 -
So get rid of the FDD on the MOBO
If the floppy is dead -- get rid of the FDD port on the motherboard
cpenner26th Apr 2010 -
RE: Sony declares official end of the floppy
I still use floppies, find them convenient and familiar and have lots of old files stored on them. I bought an external floppy drive for my new computer as recently as 2007. Why must we always be forced to change when something is working quite well?
hgciuba@...27th Apr 2010 -
Still good for diagnostic programs !!!
I still use floppies for diagnostic programs like MemTest and SpinRite, etc. Also for BIOS flashing and other hardware firmware updates, etc.
I'm soon going to buy a new PC and I'm going to find one with a Motherboard that still has a FDD connector on it so I can install a Floppy Drive. I prefer to have the Floppy Drive instead of an Internal 3.5" Media Card Reader. I already have an external USB Media Card Reader that I can plug in when needed (rarely). When I go into "My Computer" it's going to be a lot less complicated with two partitioned Hard Drives installed!
mik328th Apr 2010
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