Frequently Asked Questions About Flexible Disks

Please contact Media Sciences if your questions are not answered on these pages.

Why bother with diskette quality certification? I understand that floppies will be obsolete in a few months.

Even though all desktop computers sold are expected to have a CD-ROM or CD-RW drive, this indicates that optical discs have found their own unique niche, not that floppies are obsolete. CD-ROM discs are great for distributing large applications. Try loading Windows from floppies! CD- ROM discs are the medium of choice for multimedia. Searching an encyclopedia or playing your favorite game from tape or floppy is out of the question.

Nearly every personal computer sold today contains a 3.5" floppy drive. Some users also install a 5.25" drive or a dual 3.5"/5.25". Diskettes are still the best medium for many applications. Diskettes are invaluable for boot purposes when the system portion of a hard drive has a problem. Most operating systems and utilities offer a procedure for preparation of an emergency disk. Installation of the CD-ROM version of Windows '95 requires startup from a floppy. Many anti- viral and disk repair utilities advise the user to boot from a diskette containing the utility.

Was your video driver or printer driver delivered on a CD-ROM? It was probably contained on one or two floppy disks. Some vendors supply a CD-ROM containing only one or two MB of useful content and fill the rest with 600 MB of "free" junk programs that are obsolete. After installing them, you wish you had not, since their deletion does not fully restore your system. The problem is that install routines often overwrite current drivers with older, obsolete versions. Reinstallation of your key software may be required in order to recover your initial capabilities. DC2000 tape manufacturers count on this when they sell you drives and cartridges for backup.

Diskettes are the most economical choice for demos and small applications, especially when distribution quantities are limited. Floppies are also great for upgrades and patches. Posting them for "ftp" sounds neat, but just try to access some of these sites when you need to download a bug fix. Even if you eventually log on, watch the byte count slowly crawl along a few KB at a time during download. The fun begins when you find that the file has mysteriously been corrupted and you must start all over again. Viruses anyone? Please, just mail the floppy to me.

Have you ever swapped a file with a friend or associate? When did you last transfer a file to/from your office/home/notebook computer. It is very likely that a diskette was the medium of choice. Floppies are alive and well, and will prosper along with CD-ROM and CD-R discs, DC2000 tape, zip drives, multi-GB hard drives, and the Internet. If you think of each new product just as a replacement for some existing one, then you have misunderstood storage technology. New products are successful because they create new possibilities and challenging opportunities.

Did the airplane replace the automobile? Did the space shuttle obsolete airplanes? Of course not. Diskettes are well established, and have an immense and growing installed base. Some day, diskettes, automobiles, airplanes, and even the space shuttle will be obsolete. When this will happen is not clear, but certainly not in six months. One word of caution however. Please do not rush out to build a diskette plant! Price competition is fierce and margins are thin. Established vendors can profit, but marginal players cannot survive in this mature market.