Chuck E. Cheese still uses floppy disks in 2023, but not for long:
On Sunday, a Chuck E. Cheese employee named Stewart Coonrod posted a TikTok video that documents the process of installing a new song-and-dance show on an old Chuck E. Cheese animatronics system—a process that involves a 3.5-inch floppy disk and two DVDs. Coonrod says it is the last update before his store undergoes a remodel that will remove the animatronics altogether.
Coonrod's Chuck E. Cheese location in Darien, Illinois, was originally a Show-Biz Pizza restaurant but changed over to Chuck E. Cheese branding in 1991. It includes a single Chuck E. Cheese animatronics character (called "Cyberamics" in the parlance of the company) surrounded by four video screens in a setup called "Studio C," first introduced in 1998.
Currently, those 25-year-old setups are being phased out nationwide in favor of a remodel that replaces the animatronics character with a dance floor. It's the end of the line for Cyberamics, but a few stores still use them, and the parent company ships out updates on floppy and DVD to match the legacy system.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Wednesday January 18, @07:53AM (5 children)
So they are not upgrading the system to get rid of the floppies, they are just removing the system all together and replacing it -- with a dance floor. So first you eat all the cheese-things and then you should dance away all the calories?
So they are cheap and refuse to pay for an actual license and just keep using the shareware version over and over again? Isn't that sort of frowned upon?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18, @09:06AM (4 children)
Frown upon their profit margin, commie.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday January 18, @11:23AM (3 children)
The license cost is $29 for a single license. I doubt they need to buy them in bulk. One machine is probably enough to keep churning out the floppies. If $29 will break their profit margin I think the company is in dire straits. Suck on that capitalist-pig-dog!
(Score: 3, Funny) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday January 18, @03:08PM (2 children)
Only half joking, the $29 might break them now. This company was financially stable and printing money, then there was a leveraged buyout that put them in a bunch of debt followed by Covid.
I grok the LBO process and that it creates value by freeing capital for other investments, but it is a shame to see it guy punch a solid company.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday January 18, @03:17PM
*gut punch
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18, @04:46PM
Give a man $29, he eats for a day. Teach him the harsh reality of life, who gives a crap!
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Wednesday January 18, @06:02PM (1 child)
Stories of trains running on obsolete hardware are concerning. A story of a child's
nightmareshow running on obsolete hardware demonstrates it was developed completely upon deployment. Yea, floppies are headaches, but I would argue why fix what isn't broken.Now, on the whole I would argue that animatronics should be ripped out no matter the supporting system, but that is a marketing decision and not an engineering decision.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday January 18, @07:42PM
AFAIK, they agreed with your argument. IIRC I read elsewhere they are pulling the bots to put in a dance floor. I'll be stalking my local CeC to see if I can dumpster dive the old bots. :)