Relatedly, I was recently digging through the attic at my family’s home and came across a 3.5" disk containing a bunch of QBASIC programs I’d written in the early ’90s. Despite sitting for decades in a non–climate-controlled attic, it loaded up just fine when I plugged it into a USB floppy drive. Honestly, looking back at code from 30+ years ago felt more like an archaeology expedition.

Also how many other kids also went around brandishing 3.5" floppies like a weird gun, "cocking them" by pulling back the shutter and letting it go with a satisfying snap?

These used to be 50 cents a piece at my high school library. What a joy it was to have a tiny simple way to transport essays (and pixel art and other fun things) to and from school and amongst all the school computers.

I had a huge stack of ancient mixed floppies and sold them for a dollar each on eBay.

Interestingly most buyers didn't care about HD, DD etc. I suspect they went into art projects.

This is definitely not recommended but when I was a kid we also used floppy disk films to look at solar eclipses. That was far from the most dangerous thing we did in 90s in a post-Soviet country.

To this day, when I read or think about a solar eclipse, I have a visual image of floppies! My first instinct seeing this on HN was “is this because there is a solar eclipse tomorrow?”

A couple years ago I got a bunch of recycled low density DS/DD disks here. It was a good deal; yeah I had to clean em off a bit, and I also re-labeled them with some newer labels. But a good deal nonetheless. I approve.

My son told be today that he wants to buy a floppy disk drive because one of the bands he likes started releasing singles on 3.5" floppies.

What a time to be alive.

There’s something uniquely painful about debugging your own old code. You remember the intent, but none of the decisions that led to the implementation. It really does feel like archaeology.

Sadly they don't sell Amsoft 3 inch disks, I enquired a few years ago.

Now I've got a pack of old floppies that are outgassing :0

I have no other explanation.

This is an almost-full box of miscellaneous floppies in one of the original cardboard trays of 30 from Office Depot.

I've got kilos more floppies in different closets but these are good ones I selected a few years ago that all passed SCANDISK.

Now this one little box is in an old ziploc bag in the office and it keeps self-inflating. At first I thought it was unusually low barometric pressure one day but I keep squeezing out the air rain or shine and it keeps on puffing back out by itself.

Something I really didn't expect.

If I did still own my own laboratory, I'd tell you what kind of gas it was by now though ;)

With 46 of them you can make a nice bag https://www.instructables.com/Floppy-Disk-Bag/

"Add to cart" does nothing. Wonder if they actually sell floppies, or just shred them to keep pushing us towards modern technology.

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