Gimmie some 1.44Mb lovin!!
Posted December 13th, 2007 at 08:52 by Quakindude
Today, I found myself trying to flash the Bios of a new review sample motherboard. No matter what I tried, I couldn't get it to recognize a bootable USB stick or CD-ROM as the flashing device. It's a Biostar board and so far, I have no complaints, not even over a 3.5" Floppy thingy. What new technology was this? The disks are fairly small, light weight, easily stored and don't need a case. However, they're hugely expensive and slow as hell! At 1.44MB per disk with 10 disks per pack for $7 at a popular office supply outlet, that comes out to almost $.42 per Megabyte!
Ridiculous!
Ok, so I'm not that new to computers. But today, for the first time in at least 4 years, I actually had to make a bootable floppy disk. I recall the days of people coming to my house and not seeing a floppy drive in my computer. This was around the same time I bought my first s754 AMD board.
"How do you transfer files?"
"How do you boot your computer if your hard drive fails?"
"What do you mean you use USB!? Those things are a faddish piece of junk that will quickly fade away!! Too expensive!"
I almost thought my life was in danger; the need to avoid change was so strong in some! But I digress.
My path to Bios flashing happiness was wrought with a mind gone stagnant in all such things low tech.
Like 3.5" drives.
Not long ago, I purchased a 3.5" floppy drive from the 'Egg as part of a bundled deal. It's the old Windows System standby, the NEC. No matter what flavor of Windows you're trying to boot, all of them will see the trusty old NEC.
I recall unpacking that box from Newegg. With little more than a passing, "I bet moths and mouse turds fall outta this floppy drive," I quickly set it aside, turning up my nose as I also unpacked a brand new 7800GS AGP video card.
Today though, my how things changed! Frantically, I went in search of that little NEC device! No longer relegated to the confines of my legacy equipment storage locker (a cardboard box actually), it now sits proudly, and too damned smugly if you ask me, on my test bench. Clicking along, flashing the Bios to a new board, the NEC drive carries out its tasks in spite of my once prudish attitude towards it.
And I won't even get into how agonizingly inept the office supply store employee was in directing me to their 3.5" floppy disks.
OK. This was an experience too funny not to pass on.
The clerk took me directly to 3.5" IDE/SATA drives. I explained, in ever slower speech tones trying to get him to understand, that I wanted a 3.5" 1.44MB, double-sided, high-density formatted little black disk thing that is pretty old technology.
My explanations and his misunderstanding/ignorance went on for a couple of minutes.
Flustered, and now blathering loudly about what he thought I was actually looking for, he insisted on showing me hard drives. Once I said removable media, he went directly to the optical drives. I finally gave up and struck out on my own, being stalked about the store by the now red-faced "associate" who obviously thought I was there to plant seeds of technological confusion about the establishment.
Like a wanna-be secret service agent, or a Star Trek crewman with his communicator in the wrong place, he would occasionally tap the ear piece activation button on his chest and discuss his suspicions of me with his cohorts. Much to my mounting amusement.
Discovering the disks I needed, a single, thin row of them reaching back into the recesses of office supply hell, I snatched the box up with an almost childish expression of victory as I turned to the guy obviously trying very hard not to be too obvious in observing me. I pointed to the box and said, "This is what I was referring to buddy!"
He laughed as he turned away. Evidently figuring out that the tall man in shorts and tank top wasn't a threat, but someone to feel sorry for. His parting comment was, "You should consider upgrading if you're still using those!"
Having been shunned by the young man who probably wasn't even versed in the effects of ice-cream on the palate when I slid a 3.5" disk into my first computer, I just couldn't get mad.
After all, it wasn't too long ago I looked at this little NEC thing and thought..."How quaint, a 3.5" floppy drive."
Ridiculous!
Ok, so I'm not that new to computers. But today, for the first time in at least 4 years, I actually had to make a bootable floppy disk. I recall the days of people coming to my house and not seeing a floppy drive in my computer. This was around the same time I bought my first s754 AMD board.
"How do you transfer files?"
"How do you boot your computer if your hard drive fails?"
"What do you mean you use USB!? Those things are a faddish piece of junk that will quickly fade away!! Too expensive!"
I almost thought my life was in danger; the need to avoid change was so strong in some! But I digress.
My path to Bios flashing happiness was wrought with a mind gone stagnant in all such things low tech.
Like 3.5" drives.
Not long ago, I purchased a 3.5" floppy drive from the 'Egg as part of a bundled deal. It's the old Windows System standby, the NEC. No matter what flavor of Windows you're trying to boot, all of them will see the trusty old NEC.
I recall unpacking that box from Newegg. With little more than a passing, "I bet moths and mouse turds fall outta this floppy drive," I quickly set it aside, turning up my nose as I also unpacked a brand new 7800GS AGP video card.
Today though, my how things changed! Frantically, I went in search of that little NEC device! No longer relegated to the confines of my legacy equipment storage locker (a cardboard box actually), it now sits proudly, and too damned smugly if you ask me, on my test bench. Clicking along, flashing the Bios to a new board, the NEC drive carries out its tasks in spite of my once prudish attitude towards it.
And I won't even get into how agonizingly inept the office supply store employee was in directing me to their 3.5" floppy disks.
OK. This was an experience too funny not to pass on.
The clerk took me directly to 3.5" IDE/SATA drives. I explained, in ever slower speech tones trying to get him to understand, that I wanted a 3.5" 1.44MB, double-sided, high-density formatted little black disk thing that is pretty old technology.
My explanations and his misunderstanding/ignorance went on for a couple of minutes.
Flustered, and now blathering loudly about what he thought I was actually looking for, he insisted on showing me hard drives. Once I said removable media, he went directly to the optical drives. I finally gave up and struck out on my own, being stalked about the store by the now red-faced "associate" who obviously thought I was there to plant seeds of technological confusion about the establishment.
Like a wanna-be secret service agent, or a Star Trek crewman with his communicator in the wrong place, he would occasionally tap the ear piece activation button on his chest and discuss his suspicions of me with his cohorts. Much to my mounting amusement.
Discovering the disks I needed, a single, thin row of them reaching back into the recesses of office supply hell, I snatched the box up with an almost childish expression of victory as I turned to the guy obviously trying very hard not to be too obvious in observing me. I pointed to the box and said, "This is what I was referring to buddy!"
He laughed as he turned away. Evidently figuring out that the tall man in shorts and tank top wasn't a threat, but someone to feel sorry for. His parting comment was, "You should consider upgrading if you're still using those!"
Having been shunned by the young man who probably wasn't even versed in the effects of ice-cream on the palate when I slid a 3.5" disk into my first computer, I just couldn't get mad.
After all, it wasn't too long ago I looked at this little NEC thing and thought..."How quaint, a 3.5" floppy drive."
Total Comments 5
Comments
 |  I keep a box of the disks and a drive in my stash for the "just in case" times like this... except mine is a Mitsumi which was another universal brand... Of course I still have the official Windows 3.1 on 5.25" floppies (7 to be exact) just for old times sake. |
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| |  We still have them down in the office. I have a few spare myself whenever I'm helping someone on an extremely old system. You should have given me a call :D |
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| |  screwball, you should frame those....that would actually be really cool to have at left-click, we have a very "check out this technology" atmosphere...now that i say that i should prolly take some pictures of it for you guys just so you all can see what we are =P |
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| |  Haha, my ever diligent Mitsumi is my constant companion. No matter what new rig, it's always there, the little clicking as the BIOS loads like a hello from an old friend. I still use it, why bother wasting some good dough on a thumb drive just to back up .txt files? |
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| |  A couple years ago my dads boss wanted to back up his harddrive. I don't know who he talked to but my dad showed up after he backed half of his system on numbered 3.5 floppy disks and informed him that he could have just used a CD or two. We got to keep the the 3.5 floppy's after he realized this. All 280 of them (and those were only the ones he had saved on) |
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