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 RS3 on Saturday July 27 2019, @06:08AM (3 children)
You mean, if it ain't broke, don't fix it? What, your company has intelligent asset management or something? Radicals!
I'm a bit surprised the VT220s themselves still work tho. Screens burned much?
I'm sure you know that an old junker PC running a terminal emulator (was it Procomm Plus I used a lot? ... ) would replace any VT220s that were not worth fixing.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Sunday July 28 2019, @01:54AM (2 children)
If it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 28 2019, @03:32AM
I live my life by that motto. ...There are whole categories of heavy equipment I'm not allowed to touch anymore...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 29 2019, @04:30PM
- Found the java dev!