Win98 -- all kidding aside

[Karl Larsen]

Bart Silverstrim wrote:
> Mario Vukelic wrote:
>   
>> On Thu, 2008-07-31 at 15:52 -0600, Karl Larsen wrote:
>>     
>>>     I have 100 floppies from the years before 1998 and would like to see 
>>> how many are good 
>>>       
>> Yeah, as I said, I can understand that. Though I would not expect too
>> much :)
>>
>>     
>>> and might even use it for a BIOS update. They still 
>>> talk about a floppy drive :-)
>>>       
>> Seriously? When most computers as sold don't even have one? I was
>> curious and checked Intel's BIOS update page, and floppies don't seem to
>> be the only option at all:
>> http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/sb/CS-022312.htm
>>     
>
> We still have some servers, and versions of Windows, that needed 
> floppies if you wanted to install controller drivers during install 
> phase of the OS...very frustrating! :-)
>
> For the most part you can work around floppies and not use them. Once 
> resorted to having to burn a bootable floppy image to the beginning of a 
> CD, but I can't remember the circumstances at the time.
>
> Right now I think the only thing I've encountered that it still may be a 
> necessity is the server farm if some versions of Windows needs the PERC 
> driver added at installation. Oh, and I think there may be some version 
> of software we have that insists on keys being installed via a 
> "keydisk", but I think (hope) the company has already moved on to just a 
> keyfile by now.
>
> -Bart
>
>   
    Yes Bart, I have bought USB solid state memory things when their 
cost dropped below $20 and they do the same thing a floppy did in 1998. 
They are all at my house with a ext3 file system and work very well with 
my Linux stuff.

    I think I have some floppy drives with Linux on them too. And that 
was the way you made a CD-Rom self boot was to steal the self boot off a 
floppy. But that was years ago!

Karl


-- 

	Karl F. Larsen, AKA K5DI
	Linux User
	#450462   http://counter.li.org.
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