Floppies and Stiffies
My first PC had twin floppies....
A while later a friend of mine who had to have the latest and greatest announced he had bought a new PC, and unlike my old fashioned floppies it had hard discs. Which was strange, as in those days, the cost of a hard disc alone was a significant fraction of the cost of a PC, and I knew roughly how much he paid for it. Turns out of course, it had a 3.5 floppy (a stiffy as I have been educated today by El Reg commentariat ), not a hard disc at all.
I also remember college in the mid/early 80's when we had to go to the college admin office and buy our floppies - they were not available in the campus shop back then. I also remember a fellow student folding his in half and sticking it his back pocket and wondering why it never worked again.
I concur with above comments that 5.25 floppies were more reliable than much later 3.5 ones. I had always assumed this was quality control - early-ish discs and disc drives (c. 85/86) were significantly more expensive than latter day 3.5 discs and drives (98/99 ish)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
