Technabob » 3.5-inch

The USB Floppy Disk

Technabob — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 15:43:26 +0000

A while back, I told you guys about some CD-R disks that look like old 3.5″ floppies. In the story, I said that I’d much rather have a 3.5″ floppy USB drive, and Technabob reader Charles Mangin of Option8 has now indulged us with one.

In order to pull off this hack, Charles had to stack components of two old 3.5″ floppies so there would be enough height to accommodate the storage of the USB connector. Inside the drive are the guts of one of those business card style USB drives.

Charles managed to precisely align the drive’s activity light with the old floppy’s write-protect switch, so there’s a little blinking red LED in there now. It looks like the disk is an old IBM PS/2 reference disk, but I doubt that he bothered copying those files to his flash drive.

Best thing about hacks like this one is that it looks like it really wouldn’t be that hard to make one for yourself – now that Charles has paved the way with his creativity.

Check out more pics over at Charles’ USB Floppy flickr album.

Floppy Disk Sticky Notes

Technabob — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 12:45:50 +0000

I remember my first 3.5-inch disk. It was a copy of MacPaint on the original Mac 128k, and it was so amazing compared to the 5.25 and 8-inch floppies of my youth. Eventually, I had boxes and boxes of the little hard-shelled floppies, each one with various and sundry Mac wares (and WareZ) loaded on them, and some cryptic description scrawled on the label. Now that the venerable floppy has gone the way of the dinosaur, I figure these fun floppy sticky notes are the perfect remembrance.

Our friends over at SUCK UK have gone through the trouble of making these sticky notes which look just like the original 3.5″ floppy, each set into a pad of 50 sheets for taking all your notes. They’re perfect for any computer geek’s workstation, and they come in a three pack with pink, yellow and white diskettes.

You can order a pack over at SUCK UK’s online shop for £7.50 (appx. $12 USD) each. I’m thinking that in 10 years or so, they’ll be making flash drive sticky notes while we’re storing all of our data in holographic cubes.

3.5-Inch Floppy Disk Change Purse Holds Coins, Not Data

Technabob — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 12:28:33 +0000

Next time you’re standing in line at the checkout getting ready to pay for your Pop Tarts and Red Bull, why not pony up your pennies in retro-geek style.

These handmade 3.5-inch floppy coin purses by BraveMoonman (she also makes some awesome felt calculator watches) are perfect for keeping your spare change from rattling around your bag. All the while, they say in no uncertain terms that you had your first computer before the snot-nosed punk clerk behind the counter was an embryo.

Each one is handsewn from colorful felt, and is the same size as a real floppy. They’re available in a variety of fruity colors that I don’t recall ever having graced the slot of my old Mac IIci’s 3.5-inch drive.

You can get your hands on one over at BraveMoonman’s Etsy shop for $18 (USD). Ah, remember when computers were beige? Take that young whippersnappers!

3.5-Inch Floppy Disks Get New Life as Jacob’S Ladder Toy

Technabob — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 10:40:03 +0000

Remember those wooden Jacob’s Ladder toys you played with when you were a kid? You know, the kind where you flip the top block over, and then all of the other clacky blocks flip over on themselves? Here’s a clever modern take on the old wooden toy.

Created by artist ZacharyBear, this Jacob’s Ladder is made from a bunch of old 3.5-inch floppy disks, woven together to create this perplexing, noisy plaything. Check out the video clip below to see this thing in action…

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

You can grab a set of these over on ZacharyBear’s Etsy shop for just $15 bucks. What’s the last time you really needed that set of Aldus Pagemaker 6.0 installer floppies anyhow?

Pinky the Ghost Pixel Art Mosaic Made From 3.5-Inch Floppy Disks [Pac-Man]

Technabob — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 11:50:57 +0000

Got 256 old 3.5-inch floppy disks lying around the house? I can’t think of a better use for a bunch of floppies but to make a giant 16×16 pixel art Pinky ghost mosaic out of them. Can you?

[via GamOvr]

What if Software Still Shipped on 3.5-Inch Disks?

Technabob — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 13:00:13 +0000

Remember the good old 3.5-inch floppy disk? Now remember how annoying it was when you had to install a program that spanned 4 or 5 disks? Well, imagine what life would be like if you had to install today’s bloatware on your computer using floppies. That’s exactly what the designers at Antrepo Design Industry envisioned in their new series series of art prints.

I had to do a double-take when I first saw it, but Adobe Photoshop CS4 would take up 358 floppies, and that’s not the full CS4 suite.

And your little lightweight browser, Firefox, all of a sudden wouldn’t seem particularly compact if it shipped on 36 disks.

And while iTunes 8 is no slouch on 46 floppies, the true heavyweight champion in this poster series has to be EA’s SIMS 3, which would take up an unbelievable 1,760 3.5-inch floppies. Or in other words, a stack of floppies that would be over 19-feet tall when piled one on top of another.

My arm hurts just thinking about having to swap disks that many times. If software companies really wanted to prevent piracy, I suppose they could always go back to distributing their programs on floppies. The number of disks you’d have to copy would be more than enough of a deterrent.

If you’re looking for some great art for your computer room, you can grab a set of 4 limited edition, hand-signed digital prints (each one measuring in at a substantial 18.9″ x 26.8″) over at the AntrepoShop for $120 (USD).

I wonder how many floppies it would take to install Metal Gear Solid 4 on my PS3.

[via Behance]

Obsolote Floppy Disk Becomes Equally Obsolete CD-R Disc

Technabob — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:00:00 +0000

Feeling retro? If you’ve got a hankering to cram an old 3.5″ floppy disk into your computer, but it has no floppy drive, now you can live out your floppy fantasies by stuffing one into your almost as outdated CD-R drive.

These CD-R discs may be square, but they’ll work in a standard CD or DVD drive despite their non-round shape. Of course, cutting corners on the discs means that they don’t store as much as a standard CD-R. These ones only hold 200MB, but that’s still over than 138 times more than an original 3.5″ floppy.

At $10 (USD) a disc, these novelties aren’t cheap, but they’ll definitely draw stares the next time you jam one into your DVD drive. To save a little, you can buy a 4-pack for $28. you can find them over at the designboom shop.

Sure, I suppose rewriteable optical drives are still standard with all PCs these days, but solid state storage is where it’s at. Me, I really want a USB flash drive that looks like an 8″ floppy – or maybe a punchcard.