this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2023
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I found this old software on a medium I don't recognize at my church. Does anyone know if this has value to anybody? this

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[–] [email protected] 227 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (6 children)

It's the guts of 3.5" floppies, like these, they usually stored 720kB, then 1.44MB, but the latest versions (double sided) were 2.88MB.

The larger one at the bottom is from a 5 1/4" (orange in this picture, the big daddy in the picture is 8", first type I used, with COBOL)

... and now you kids know where the "save" button icon came from.

They were not meant to be removed from their protective envelopes, they're probably damaged now.

[–] [email protected] 68 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Hear, hear.

As in, wha? Did you say something? taps cane on the floor

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Your belt onions are looking spiffy today

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

Which was the style at the time...

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Started with the 8" bastards on a dedicated word processor (with a 12" CRT, green phospher glow, and typwriter style printer built right into the top of the unit!) that my dad had for medical filekeeping at his office.

It's been amazing watching storage tech from those to zip drives, and now, floppies of any kind are dying.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago (1 children)

My daughter found a 3.5" floppy in a drawer a couple of years ago (she was 20) and went "What is this? It looks just like a 'Save' button!" :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

I hope you smacked her for that lol.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago

My parents first computer was 3 feet tall and cost $30,000. I liked to play frogger on it lmao.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Don't forget the cassettes before that. (Sinclair 1000 / ZX-81)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

Having worked in a datacenter somewhat recently, I can assure you that cassettes are still in use. Now, they manage to fit tens of TB in a 4"x4" square.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

Oregon Trail, on cassette, on a RadioShack TRS-80 in the school library.

Gaming heaven.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (6 children)

First game I ever played was on those 8” floppies. It was a turtle game where you would type in DOS commands and make it move. I can’t remember the command prompts but it was fun enter like forward 1000 and it would blast across the screen.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

That’s it! Ha ha wow haven’t seen that since elementary school.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Logo wasn't a game but a programming language.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

As far as I can remember, it was both, as it was an educational tool developed to teach children the basics of programming while playing it as a game.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

Good old turtle. You could also program loops, so you could make fancy shapes like circles.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

I learned this and BASIC at around the same time.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

That sounds like Logo

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Logo ? Anyway there was a this "programming langue" with a turtle and it had like 6 commands : move forward/backwards, turn left/right, pen up/down :-D

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

I remember that! As others have posted, Logo.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

If you play them backwards a satanic message is heard before the media bursts into flames.