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.
I wonder what "limited lifetime warranty" means.
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.
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
It made me wanna listen to the rest of his music once I actually fully heard Never Gonna Give You Up
Make sure to use this version of the song
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
autorun.inf
and add the following to it with a text editor:
[autorun]
open=Microsoft.Media.Player.exe
icon=icon.ico
while 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 the OS was sophisticated enough to tell the difference... A drive letter is a drive letter...
There are USB headers, PCI(-E) slots, SATA and some older ones. To get storage devices working on each one you will need a different driver.
Windows disabled autorun for USB sticks before win10.
Also if you list the devices on Linux they will show up as sd(a, b, cβ¦) for SSDs, hd(a, b, cβ¦) for HDDs and nvmen(0,1,2β¦) for NVMe drives. So yes the OS must be able to differentiate.
Windows assigning letters is just weird IMO.
Also to my knowledge the floppy would show up as disk A on Windows.
I fuckin LOVE this!!!! Itβs 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
Nah itβs awesome. Like you can then tell them βHah youβve been rickrolledβ haha.
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.
This but put your own floppy drives up on local listing sites for ridiculous prices. Lmao it's almost too evil.
Alternatively, you could write
Yeeessssss...
Cover the paper label with packing tape (cheap mans laminate).
Use quick set epoxy for a better bond.
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.
Carry one in your pocket so you can whip it out in a threatening gesture... like in the film hackers
I think we finally threw out the last of our diskettes about a decade ago - most were too corrupted to recover anything useful. I guess I could 3D print one now ...
I actually bought some online about a year ago because Iβm doing some retro stuff. I even got a usb floppy drive.
I probably still have a USB floppy drive in the Bin of Peripherals. Haven't really actively worked with floppies since 2012 though.
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.
I know, I agree. It's just, I'm tired of people using bad coasters then complaining when they stick to the bottom of their glass spilling condensation water all over their lap and shirt. This is the reason that happens. That said, I would totally love to have good floppy disk look alike coasters. But being given an actual one as a coaster won't amuse me, it would make me groan.
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.
Whatever you do, as soon as you crack it open get your nose right up there and inhale deeply.
Floppy disks are a way to install linux on your microwave try a distro like arch linux it's microwave safe
Load virus on to banking system to embezzle fraction of cents on each financial operation.
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.
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.
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
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
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...
Start a porn collection of high quality pictures. Be sure to zip span them across all disks⦠all 1 photo
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!?"