floppy support

[Felix Miata]

On 2011/08/30 15:06 (GMT+1000) Chris Jones composed:

> I can't see any reason for floppies these days considering their extreme
> price per data unit as opposed to usb memory.

For some people the price of floppies is a sunk cost, or was never a cost at 
all (e.g. me, who has over a hundred empty ones acquired 5, 10 or 20 years 
ago, some at 0 price).

Unlike USB chips in most budgets, each floppy is cheap enough to be 
disposable after one use or dedicated to one small file.

Floppies have enough room on them to write down something legible about their 
content (e.g. DOS boot with FDISK; Memtest86+ v.whatever; BIOS flash for xyz 
brand AMI BIOS; etc.) which won't interfere with insertion or removal from 
its reader.

Floppies are large enough to be much less likely than a USB stick to get lost 
between couch cushions or fit through a pocket hole.

Not everyone uses hardware with installed and functional OM, bootable USB or PXE.

A rude installer might unset a bootable flag or fail to install boot code in 
the MBR of the only available internal storage, leaving the primary boot 
device unbootable, and a floppy the only available device to boot from 
without opening up the machine, if opening up is even any option at all.

IOW, poor as they are, floppies still have both advantages and uses.
-- 
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

  Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

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