I was gifted an unopened pack of 3.5" floppy disks. What should I do with them? (wrong answers only)
I wonder what "limited lifetime warranty" means.
Label in sharpie as "Bitcoin password" and superglue to the sidewalk in a busy area. Watch people try to pick up.
This is 98% the right answer, but you drop them somewhere that keeps them intact, and believable enough so that people take them, and spend the rest of the weekend going to thrift stores trying to find an external floppy drive, and the next month trying to figure out how to get their iPhone to mount it.
Alternatively, you could write
This is the right answer. You failed hard.
Yeeessssss...
Cover the paper label with packing tape (cheap mans laminate).
Use quick set epoxy for a better bond.
Stuck to the fridge using a hard drive magnet!
Dude. RAID.
Click on them to save your files.
Just carry one around with you and whenever something important happens or you are about to do something risky, pull it out, press it with your finger and loudly say "Save".
Edit: Bonus points for carrying a huge cardboard mouse pointer to click with.
Edit 2: I really should read all the replies before starting to type.
Download a car
You wouldn't dare
Label one “Important Documents” and then attach it to your refrigerator door using a fridge magnet
Sell them as 3D printed save icons.
That would possibly work
LoL, you made me crack
Carry one in your pocket so you can whip it out in a threatening gesture... like in the film hackers
Or throw a diskette in the trash while being chased by the police, then yell "HACK THE PLANET!" from the back of the police car.
Righteous hack!
Get a few suitcases at Goodwill or something, stick a floppy and some 'redacted' papers in a red envelope, leave them in random places around town and observe what happens. Make sure to wear a trench coat and sunglasses when you 'forget' them at each drop point.
Conspicously leaving random packages around town is how you get the bomb squad called and you wind up in an interogation room.
Well OP did say wrong answers only.
Contact TDK about extending that limited lifetime warranty.
Thank them for the retro-themed coaster set
Ok, this is a sidetrack but hear me out. Floppy disks would make awful coasters. A coaster has to be somewhat absorbent to avoid spilling condensation water on the table. This is why cork is the most popular material for coasters. The best coasters are a cloth top over a cork shape with a plastic rim and a felt bottom. This ensures total protection to the table and gives enough freedom to be creative with shapes, prints, colors and figures. The novelty printed plastic disks are the worst coasters possible, and floppy disks will only drip all over the table defeating the purpose of a coaster.
Combine them into a blazing fast 14.4 MB RAID 0.
Wow, those floppy drives are really singin'. Heheh
Had no idea you could actually do this.
How'd I know it would be action retro
Floppy disks are a way to install linux on your microwave try a distro like arch linux it's microwave safe
I cook Arch btw
ding!
Load virus on to banking system to embezzle fraction of cents on each financial operation.
OP said wrong answers only.
If fucking Citibank has one goddamn floppy drive living in a building somewhere I will shove a Frisbee down my throat until I can't see it anymore.
Like in Superman 3?
Don't forget to make up a Da Vinci virus to sink ships and blame it on hackers in case shit hits the fan.
Put all your precious documents on the disks and then rub a magnet on each one of them to make sure they are properly energized. The stronger the magnet the better.
Hand them to zoomers as 3d printed save buttons
Sell them to zoomers as 3d save button coasters. $19.95 each
Write your own copy of Windows 10, minus the bloat. You'll probably have 2 floppies left
With those in hand, start waving them around maniacally and shout "WHY IS IT CALLED A FLOPPY IF IT'S SO DAMN HARD!?"
Start a porn collection of high quality pictures. Be sure to zip span them across all disks… all 1 photo
Split up something like Puppy or Damn Small Linux across them all.
Build a PC with 15-20 floppy drives and insert and mount them all.
Boot Linux off of all the floppies.
Build a PC with 15-20 floppy drives and insert and mount them all.
10 floppy drive raid, please. don't want to lose that critical data
This!
Once upon a time, there was a Linux distro that would fit on a single floppy, it was intended for system rescue, diagnostics, that sort of thing...
Oh no, now I'm going to have to search for an old floppy disc
Pirate Windows 95
95 was on CD. This might be enough to pirate Doom though
It was available on floppy. So was Win98.
sure, use arj to compress doom to your disk:
c:\games\doom\ arj a -va a:\doom.arj
It fits on 4 floppies that way is I remember correctly.
As I recall, my windows 95 CD-ROM contained a bunch of floppy-sized .cab files in a folder, so it's entirely possible it was available as a set of floppies...
Put a 240p rick and roll video inside and write cryptic labels on them. Spread them around the city and rest knowing that someone is going to go through hoops only to get Rick rolled.
Oh man, make it a split zip file of 1.44Mb on each disk, hidden in separate places with hints. A Rick roll treasure hunt
"Rick and roll" 😆
OP said wrong answers only, not the only right answer
Several years ago, I found a 3.5" floppy in an old desk, so I wrote "(My company's product) Production backup - DO NOT LOSE" on the label, and then left it on the floor in a main hallway of our office.
In my mind, it hopefully made a few people chuckle, but my real dream was that someone picked it up and tried to return it to the development team.
Now I want to do this at my job... I actually have a box of 5.25" floppies somewhere...
Lan party coasters
World's best swap drive.
When Windows 95 was still sold on floppy, it came on 25 fucking floppies in the box.
So I say put Windows 38 on them.
Sell them to someone who will test and resell them to the airline or medical industry... Manufacturing is a likely customer as well, plenty of legacy equipment there that's airgapped and still running decades-old hw/sw.
Youtube warning, some Boeing 747s
(This is a wrong answer since you only have a single pack. If you had several cases, you might actually be able to make a buck)
Coasters for a DnD night!
But this is a good answer!
THEY BELONG IN A MUSEUM!!!
You could use them as a memory card for ps1 games.
Cyberpunk chainmail breastplate
open it in a non-destructive manner, switch every read/write lock slider, put it back together.
Press them to make a real world save point.
You mean 3.5" drink coasters?
This is actually a good answer, not a wrong one.
"3D save button coasters"
Buy a USB floppy drive for each one and then create a RAID 0 disk array. It'll be super quick and gloriously noisy.
For anyone not familiar... That would give you 14.4 MB (1.44 MB formatted x 10) of capacity. The rated speeds for a floppy drive is 1000 kilobits per second. So if you did a Raid-0 (striped), let's just say that gives you 10,000 kilobits per second. We convert transfer speeds to storage speeds (8 bits to 1 byte)... Means 1.25MB/s. So best case, it takes you about 11.5 seconds to do a full transfer of the 14.4MB. it actually be much slower because this is best case scenario.
Gift them as cup coasters.
Unwrap them and open it and then put them all back so they look used. Write on the box in sharpie "Backups 1/127". Delete the critical production system at your work. When someone asks where the backups are, hand them these.
Make that "Backups Prod 3/127"
Anus... Right into the anus...
Go play a very public and dramatic round of disc golf
don't run Doom with them
DO IT, YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO
Throw them at junior sysadmins like shuriken.
Inserting your floppy is a time honored tradition. Have a few too many beers, and give it a go. You have 10 chances to succeed, it seems.
It says they're high density, so use them as ammo for your rail gun
Run Doom on them?
Don't copy that floppy.
Buy doom on steam, download and backup the install files on the floppy
Butt stuff.
Use them to make a bootleg copy of Duke Nukem to share with your friends. That's what we used to do with them lol
Fuck being incorrect. Buy an old AKAI sampler and make music from floppy disks libraries, I still do with my S-1100. Wrong answer would be to ritually burn them...don't.
Finally update device drivers in Windows the right way!
Find a way to convert them into triangle shaped disks
Ew. Hexagons are the bestagons
Ha! That was a good one.
(I’ll be surprised if anyone gets the reference I made lol)
Those work with the Sabre Pyramid.
They also work with a Phalanx XR-12
crunchy but old snack
It is compared to their predecesssor.
The 720kb "double density" diskette used for example, in Commodore Amiga computers.
Mount nine of them on a square board so that they're all focused on a single point for a mild solar furnace.
Use the last one to look at yourself, the proud owner of a mild solar furnace.
You… don’t know what a floppy disk is, do you?
I do, I just don't pay careful attention to details and just run with what I think things are saying.
My first computer was an Atari 520ST. No hard drive (its OS ran off a chip), and every program ran off a floppy. And your storage was on a floppy.
Yeah, I know floppies. I used to have shoeboxes of them.
What kind of floppies are you thinking of? the very little metal on those discs aren't that reflective.
I was too far in the future, using CDs. Floppies, wow.
Now I'm going to have to rethink my whole thing.
Be wild! Copy that floppy!
Glue two on top of your flip flops. You now unlocked the floppy flip flops
If they have pics of John Kerry, they can be flip flopping floppy flip flops
Thank Lord they come already formatted.
Boof them. Don't think about it, just boof em.
find the most complex AI model file you can put on it
Add Nutella, enjoy?
You build your own floppotron of course
That was amazing… so much free time and hydro!
Make yourself some Enterprises.
Beat me too it.. For those that don't get it
Print your business cards on them.
Epoxy them into coasters and sell them as save icon coasters.
Write “If found, please return to Minot AFB, ND c/o Duane” on them & scatter them in various airport restrooms across the US.
Sell them. There is a market for that.
https://www.tdkrfsolutions.tdk.com/support/warrant-terms
Probably not the same terms as when they made the disks, but it's their terms on limited warranty now.
Also, hand the disks to anyone asking you for your email for marketing purposes. Tell them all your information is on the disk.
Tape the other hole and format them in DD (0,72MB) format.
Copy them
Copy that floppy!
Put them in a raidz2 situation
Toast them and have them with PB&J, obviously
Abort, Retry, or Fail. But all at the same time.
Use them
Use them to do the longest en passant in the history of chess
I wonder what “limited lifetime warranty” means.
It probably means you can complain any time about a manufacturing defect, but not anything else.
Anyway, the terms should be printed somewhere on the box or in a paper inside.
Usually just means the expected lifetime of the product
Throw them away and find a shugart compatible disk
Get ten USB floppy drives and set up a raid:
https://web.archive.org/web/20080117032102/http://phoenix.cc.edu:80/MegaFloppy.htm
link them together through the data and read-only slots to make a countdown chain.
Nerdcore bling
Get them hard!
Disc golf
Very overstable.
You’ll want to download and install the most up-to-date drivers. I believe this model benefits from a slight overclock too, so maybe look at purchasing a decent aftermarket cooler
Live action reboot of ReBoot
Zork zork zork zork zork zork
Make little finger sandwiches out of them and have a tea party.
could make a nice, nutritious breakfast
Shuffle them like playing cards
Copy them
Write MP3s to them and use them to play one song in a modern car.
(I saw a video of someone playing a clip of music using a USB floppy drive)
Throw them around your office like frisbees.
Eat it
Your should install Lady Sia, a game published by TDK on it
Flopp flopp flopp flooooooooopp
Zip tie them into a 2x1 rectangular box with a flip top lid. A drill may be needed.
Oh, man. This brings me back to my Amiga 500 days. So slow to load, but I loved that thing. Wish I hadn't sold it.
Store your important data on them.
Kind of hard to give right answers to something that time has rendered utterly useless. I guess you could sell it as an antique
Saw a post on mastodon in the last day or so that someone dug up a network card for the old 486 they had been working on getting back to life. Might be a use case there, as well as in aviation and medicine - fields that move exceptionally slowly and tend to have expensive equipment with long lifetimes.
Attach one to a light pole with a paper that says "Government access codes"
Why would anyone bother making 1.4 MB diaks
Right.
640k ought to be enough for anybody.
this...is a great idea!
Especially since I have friends who will go to some effort to find out what's on the disk out of curiosity.
Lol whoops, I meant to give a wrong answer, my bad
Make sure to name the file inconspicuously but temptingly, relating to the old days, like Bill Gates confession.mp3 or DJ Mike Llama - Llama Whippin' Intro.mp3
They make really good coasters, will recommend.
Rick rollercoastered.
Poor Mr. Astley, forever known as Mr. Roll
He had his run during the 80s. He's enjoying a second wind with the Rick roll.
Make sure to use this version of the song
Floppy Disks - Never Gonna Give You Up - Rick Astley
We use old floppies as coasters!
I have people all the time ask "these are so cute, where did you get them?". RadioShack. 25 years ago.
just in case someone sticks it in a working drive, add a file to the floppy named
and add the following to it with a text editor:
[autorun] open=Microsoft.Media.Player.exe icon=icon.icowhile i doubt it will actually work, if it does, it would be quite hilarious in my opinion. there's probably, hopefully, safeguards that prevent such a thing from working and i likely have the syntax wrong, i haven't used windows in years.
I don't think autorun worked with floppy disks, only with CDs and USB units.
I fuckin LOVE this!!!! It’s absurd in the extreme and yet, so fuckin cool!
I humbly bow to your greatness of creativity.
Thanks! I was intending for it to be more of a shitpost, but I guess I'm not very good at those, it turns out
6.