Retrotechtacular: The Floppy Disk Orphaned By Linux
About a week ago, Linus Torvalds made a software commit which has an air about it of the end of an era. The code in question contains a few patches to the driver for native floppy disc controllers. What makes it worthy of note is that he remarks that the floppy driver is now orphaned. Its maintainer no longer has working floppy hardware upon which to test the software, and Linus remarks that "I think the driver can be considered pretty much dead from an actual hardware standpoint", though he does point out that active support remains for USB floppy drives.
It's a very reasonable view to have arrived at because outside the realm of retrocomputing the physical rather than virtual floppy disk has all but disappeared. It's well over a decade since they ceased to be fitted to desktop and laptop computers, and where once they were a staple of any office they now exist only in the "save" icon on your wordprocessor. The floppy is dead, and has been for a long time.
Still, Linus' quiet announcement comes as a minor jolt to anyone of A Certain Age for whom the floppy disk and the computer were once inseparable.
Next thing, someone will be removing punched card and paper tape reader support. Where does it end?
(Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday July 27 2019, @12:57AM (3 children)
This gives me some real nostalgia too [youtube.com] :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 27 2019, @01:21AM
Green or amber, that is the question.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Saturday July 27 2019, @03:57AM
Obligatory:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM_sAxrAu7Q [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday July 27 2019, @09:05AM
It gives me notalgia, but that's probably because of an old back injury.