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Here's how to find out what's on your old floppy disks

When was the last time you saw, let alone used a floppy disk? I honestly can't remember, but I kn...
Newstalk
Newstalk

08.00 11 May 2017


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Here's how to find out...

Here's how to find out what's on your old floppy disks

Newstalk
Newstalk

08.00 11 May 2017


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When was the last time you saw, let alone used a floppy disk? I honestly can't remember, but I know I have a shoe box filled with them in my parent's attic. 

While it's still used as the 'save' icon in Microsoft Office, and there's an emoji for it too, very few people still use the square objects for storage. This is primarily because one floppy disk can only offer up to 1.44MB of space. 

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Apple was the first to give up on the floppy disk, opting not to include a drive for it on their 1998 iMac. Before long, other manufacturers followed suit. The floppy drive was replaced with a disk drive and USB ports. Today, a large portion of laptop devices simply have USB ports. 

Drive

If like me, you have a pile of floppy disks stored somewhere and want to know what you were opting to save back in the late 90s, you can purchase an external floppy disk drive. 

I stumbled upon this one from Dynamode the other day whilst walking around Currys PCWorld

The small box plugs into a Windows computer or Mac via USB. From here, it's possible to insert a floppy disk into the drive and view the files. 

The device says it is compatible with Mac and Windows 7, however, a number of users have reported it working with Windows 8 too. If you're unsure if it is compatible with your operating system, ask in store. 

 


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