The end of an era

It’s a sad day for those who love their classics. No, nothing about old writers or historical buildings. This is about something that recently got from the present- into the history chapter of our brains: the Floppy Disk.

I never had anything with inches, but 3,5inch does recall a lot. I grew up in the late eighties, early nineties and had my first “cyber experience” with a 12” black/yellow screen IBM. It had two external drives: the 5¼" floppy disk and the 3,5" diskette. There were a few games available at that time, playable from one of these disks. Hours of fun were passed on our computer, being an “8-figure” running from “A’s” and “X’s” that were enemies that could kill you. Around the mid-nineties, more and more games were developed for home computers. We got color screens and the graphics improved dramatically. One thing did not change though: all the games were still on floppy disks. Until, yes, until the Compact Disk (or CD) kicked in. Awesome as it was, it could contain over 500 times as much data and could be read out faster than a floppy. This meant the start of the decline of use and sales of diskettes. Especially with the Cdrewriters, the introduction of the USB storage devices and the quick development of online storage, the floppy disk knew its time had come.
After retreating from the world market, Sony Japan has now also pulled the plug on it’s domestic sales of floppy disks. No more cool games on little black squares. It’s the end of an era.