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Floppies - not so useless as we all might think....(heavy JPGs!)
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Mac Elite
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Germany, 51°51´51" N, 9°05´41" E
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Just wanted to share something funny with all of you. I started working with a new TEM ( Transmission Electron Microscope) some weeks ago and after a few hours of using it i discovered a bizzaro feature of this device. The whole system parameters (default settings for lens currents, emmission currents, management of valve system and ultra-high vacuum pumps (one turbomolecular, two ion getter pumps btw), goniometer stage, beam alignment and so on are stored ON A SINGLE FLOPPY DISK!!
Of course there are several computers connected to the device, but they�re only controlling "periphery" like the CCD-camera, the cryo stage, elementary analysis, X-ray-analysis and the other tons of possibilities the system provides.
Some pics:
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Macintosh Quadra 950, Centris 610, Powermac 6100, iBook dual USB, Powerbook 667 DVI, Powerbook 867 DVI, MacBook Pro early 2011
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Hyrule
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A lot of machines tend to work that way 
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Aloha
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Capital city of the Empire State.
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I was watching an incredibly stupid movie on TV the other day ("Code Hunter" aka "Storm Watch").
The plot revolves around this huge new Pentagon supercomputer, which has been built to run a secret program that can actually control Earth's weather patterns.
At one point, the hero copies this secret program onto a single floppy.
Damn, those Pentagon coders are good!
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/mal
"I sentence you to be hanged by the neck until you cheer up."
MacBook Pro 15" w/ Mac OS 10.8.2, iPhone 4S & iPad 4th-gen. w/ iOS 6.1.2
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: Jun 2003
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Yeah, but how old is that EM scope? 10 years old?
It's not as if there is a huge requirement for data (excluding for the images on the newer machines). The older ones just use knobs and switches and no floppy.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Feb 2002
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Originally posted by Eug Wanker:
Yeah, but how old is that EM scope? 10 years old?
It's not as if there is a huge requirement for data (excluding for the images on the newer machines). The older ones just use knobs and switches and no floppy.
He said it was new.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Jul 2003
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In some of our labs where they do bloodwork, the testing machines use floppies to store their configurations and backup data. Not surprising, since the drives are cheap, the media is cheap, and you're not dealing with large amounts of data. These aren't old machines, either. The last one was purchased less than a year ago.
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Aug 2001
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Oh. I thought this thread was on men who failed on Viagra.
Thank god there were no pictures of that....
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Posting Junkie
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Originally posted by sideus:
He said it was new.
Yeah, I missed that. I wonder how old the design is though.
Personally, I'd rather see a CF card slot instead, simply because floppies are notoriously unreliable.
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Jan 2003
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I used to use a TEM back when I worked at Northwestern, but never remember seeing any floppies. I must have been distracted by the then new dual proc. G4's.
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AT&T iPhone 5S and 6; 13" MBP; MDD G4.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Germany, 51°51´51" N, 9°05´41" E
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Yeah, it�s brand spanking new, in fact still in a test phase. The CCD device not works the way i�d like it. But the options and ease of use are impressive.
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Macintosh Quadra 950, Centris 610, Powermac 6100, iBook dual USB, Powerbook 667 DVI, Powerbook 867 DVI, MacBook Pro early 2011
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Senior User
Join Date: Jan 2003
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Floppies are not very reliable. I'd have recommended a CDROM to store this data. Lasts VERY long.  
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Mac Elite
Join Date: May 2002
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Floppies are not very reliable. I'd have recommended a CDROM to store this data. Lasts VERY long.
shoot me, but in fact i�ve seen more CD-ROMs with corrupted files than floppies. In 10 years i had only three cases of data loss due to the use of floppies but several times (>10) in case of CDs. The only drawback of floppies is their small capacity and low speed.
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Macintosh Quadra 950, Centris 610, Powermac 6100, iBook dual USB, Powerbook 667 DVI, Powerbook 867 DVI, MacBook Pro early 2011
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Senior User
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Originally posted by euphras:
shoot me, but in fact i�ve seen more CD-ROMs with corrupted files than floppies. In 10 years i had only three cases of data loss due to the use of floppies but several times (>10) in case of CDs. The only drawback of floppies is their small capacity and low speed.
If a CD is properly printed and verified it will not fail. Not in this decade. Floppies are magnetic discs and not physically hardcoded. They can fail after they've been verified.
Even so they don't do so all the time. I still have a bunch of old Mac floppies since the 80s that still work just fine. I've never seen a CD that fails if it is physically unharmed.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: May 2002
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I've never seen a CD that fails if it is physically unharmed.
And that "unharmed" is the problem: Leave it on your desk or your window sill in direct sun and *viola* corrupted.....
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Macintosh Quadra 950, Centris 610, Powermac 6100, iBook dual USB, Powerbook 667 DVI, Powerbook 867 DVI, MacBook Pro early 2011
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Senior User
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Originally posted by euphras:
And that "unharmed" is the problem: Leave it on your desk or your window sill in direct sun and *viola* corrupted.....
Naturally, but the same applies to floppies.
Neither are indestructible you know. All I'm saying is a system calibrating CD that is kept at all times in the drive will not fail.
Floppies can fail even in that environment.
I'm not trying to start a floppy vs CD debate here.. use whatever suits.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Oct 2002
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Brings back long ago memories. 
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"Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense." Winston Churchill
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Moderator Emeritus  Join Date: Mar 2001
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Originally posted by euphras:
The whole system parameters (default settings for lens currents, emmission currents, management of valve system and ultra-high vacuum pumps (one turbomolecular, two ion getter pumps btw), goniometer stage, beam alignment and so on are stored ON A SINGLE FLOPPY DISK!!
It's not that surprising at all. Text does not take up much room at all (one byte per ASCII character). All of the plist files in my Preferences folder (243 of them) take up 1.3 MB. They would all fit onto a single floppy, and that holds the preferences for nearly every app I have on my computer. So the configuration of a single machine fitting in 1.44MB of space is not surprising at all.
What I don't get is why the machine doesn't store it's own settings (defaults, etc) in some sort of built-in memory. Or why they wouldn't at least pick a more stable form of data storage.
Originally posted by euphras:
shoot me, but in fact i�ve seen more CD-ROMs with corrupted files than floppies. In 10 years i had only three cases of data loss due to the use of floppies but several times (>10) in case of CDs. The only drawback of floppies is their small capacity and low speed.
My question to you then is how many of these CDs were failing on you 10 years ago? Burning technology in its infancy was not as reliable as it is now. So 10 years ago you were working with floppies which had been around forever (and therefore stable technology) and CD-Rs which were new.
I'm not trying to argue that CDs don't ever fail, but I'd be very surprised if CDs still fail as much today as you seem to be saying they do.
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Last edited by Xeo; Mar 2, 2005 at 07:26 PM.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Dec 1999
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They shouldv'e used those mini-CD roms. They look cool.
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"…I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than
you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods,
you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F. Roberts
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Mac Elite
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Germany, 51°51´51" N, 9°05´41" E
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Originally posted by Xeo
What I don't get is why the machine doesn't store it's own settings (defaults, etc) in some sort of built-in memory. Or why they wouldn't at least pick a more stable form of data storage.
I think it serves as a backup (the label actually reads "backup xx.yy.2004; backup xx.yy.2005; etc.". The plist in use when the TEM is powered up is presumeably stored in some kind of flash storage device or so.
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Macintosh Quadra 950, Centris 610, Powermac 6100, iBook dual USB, Powerbook 667 DVI, Powerbook 867 DVI, MacBook Pro early 2011
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Jun 2004
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I have found that cheap brands of cd's will develop physical holes or something like that in them after one to two years, but expensive ones can last for a long time.
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Dangling something in the water… of the Arabian Sea
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Originally posted by euphras:
shoot me, but in fact i�ve seen more CD-ROMs with corrupted files than floppies. In 10 years i had only three cases of data loss due to the use of floppies but several times (>10) in case of CDs. The only drawback of floppies is their small capacity and low speed.
It depends on the CD-R media. Cheap media goes belly up very quickly. Good media lasts a LONG time.
That's even true today. There is still a lot of crap CD-R media out there.
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Senior User
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Tallahassee, FL
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Originally posted by Eug Wanker:
It depends on the CD-R media. Cheap media goes belly up very quickly. Good media lasts a LONG time.
That's even true today. There is still a lot of crap CD-R media out there.
In this case, the system discs (CDs) would be pressed like all bought CDs. These last pretty much forever if untouched.
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