Well, i did it.
Last night (since it's now morning) i finally yanked out my old 3.25" drive and put in a USB 2.0 hub. i now, officially, no longer have a floppy available. This is not a big deal, since both my CD drives are CD/RW and bootable, i've still got a Zip drive that i can use for slow semi-permanent storage, there were so many other things i could use that space for (or plug into a USB port)
i was thinking about putting a few more cooling fans in my tower since all the drives heat up something fierce, but they don't sell any quiet ones that fit that size.
This, of course, leads to a few questions:
- How long before i need it?
- How long will it take before i get annoyed about not being able to find the damn thing and spend $30 on a USB floppy drive?
- If i showed it to kids this holloween, would they scream and run away?
- When will i get a chance to properly scrub those old multi GB drives i've got laying around. (Seriously, i've got something like 20GB of antiquated storage. i'm tempted to just crack the seals on them and make very expensive coasters from the platters.)
- The heck am i going to do with those boxes of floppies lurking in the darker recesses of my closet?
Of course, it also goes without saying that i've no intention of getting rid of my original Windows 3.0 floppies. (i figure that one will scare off the kids that didn't run when they saw the floppy drive.)
Oh, the motivation for this? i was over at Fry's to get a network cable for Anne Marie's laptop (so she can surf faster than 11MB/s) and saw a multi format flash reader for free (after rebate) and the USB2.0 bay port for $10 (returned/missing CD & instructions) Picked up a Pin to USB connector for $5 to get the ball rolling and realized that i no longer wanted my floppy drive.
Cheapest trip to Fry's for the most amount of return.
Evar.
