[SunRescue] Rant on industry employment practices, was RE: 16MB memory module for Voyager

[Gregory Leblanc]

On 08 Jan 2001 14:46:00 -0800, Cyrus M. Reed wrote:
> On Mon, 8 Jan 2001, Reagen Ward wrote:
> > I've got WordPerfect 4.2 for DOS (Windows 3.0 was just a dream at the time)
> > floppies, 360k 5.25, sitting in a drive box.  Do those things degrade?  I
> > don't even have a 5.25 drive anymore.
> 
> 5.25" floppies tend to go bad after a while, but the 3.5" ones will last
> longer as long as their well cared for.  Of my personal disks, I think
> I've only seen about one or two 3.5" disks go bad - but I've seen many
> more than that die, which wasn't surprising considering the shape that
> most were in, like someone had run over them with a car, etc.


I have to disagree here, poor care isn't the only thing that kills
floppies.  They're a teeny tiny sheet of plastic with iron filings glued
on, basicly.  They don't last forever, unless you don't ever use them. 
I should also note that there are two kinds of floppies, the kind you
buy at the store, and the kind that software is shipped on.  The former
are crap, and often fail/start out broken, but nobody gets the warranty
on them.  The ones that are (were?) used to ship software are always in
good shape to start out with, and don't die very easily.  I use CD-RW
exclusively now, but I work at a college, and I spend probably 5 hours
durring dead week, and finals week working on floppies, and so do the
other three guys in the office.  That's a LOT of time for those little
buggers.  

    Greg