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.
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.
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:
undefined
[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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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
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!?"
Oh no, now I'm going to have to search for an old floppy disc
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
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...
Pirate Windows 95
95 was on CD. This might be enough to pirate Doom though
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...
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.
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...
World's best swap drive.
Lan party coasters
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)
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.
Coasters for a DnD night!
But this is a good answer!
You could use them as a memory card for ps1 games.
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"
THEY BELONG IN A MUSEUM!!!
open it in a non-destructive manner, switch every read/write lock slider, put it back together.
Cyberpunk chainmail breastplate
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"
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.
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.
don't run Doom with them
DO IT, YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO
Go play a very public and dramatic round of disc golf
Gift them as cup coasters.
Anus... Right into the anus...
manually etch the bits yourself. Just use a hammer and chisel
Throw them at junior sysadmins like shuriken.
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
