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The last floppy disk was made over a decade ago and doesn't even have enough capacity to store a modern smart phone picture, so why do some people still love using them?
When an idea for a new piece of music begins swirling in Espen Kraft's mind, he turns to one of his many boxes of floppy disks. Flipping open the lid, the musician and YouTuber from Norway stares down at rows of colourful plastic squares inside. His fingers browse across them, as fast as lightning.
"Bass sound from Moog" reads one label. Just what Kraft was looking for. He plucks the disk out and slams it into his synthesizer. As the machine embraces it, there are clunky yet reassuring noises. This part, Kraft says, is where the magic happens.
The sample is almost ready to play but not quite – it's the anticipation as it loads that sparks a certain nostalgia, what Kraft calls, "a nice, warm, cosy place". The idea is flowing now. He presses a key. His ears fill with sound.
If you remember a time when using floppy disks didn't seem weird, you're probably at least 30 years old. Floppy disks or diskettes emerged around 1970 and, for a good three decades or so, they were the main way many people stored and backed up their computer data. All the software and programmes they bought came loaded onto clusters of these disks. They are a technology from a different era of computing, but for various reasons floppy disks have an enduring appeal for some which mean they are from dead.
www.bbc.com
When an idea for a new piece of music begins swirling in Espen Kraft's mind, he turns to one of his many boxes of floppy disks. Flipping open the lid, the musician and YouTuber from Norway stares down at rows of colourful plastic squares inside. His fingers browse across them, as fast as lightning.
"Bass sound from Moog" reads one label. Just what Kraft was looking for. He plucks the disk out and slams it into his synthesizer. As the machine embraces it, there are clunky yet reassuring noises. This part, Kraft says, is where the magic happens.
The sample is almost ready to play but not quite – it's the anticipation as it loads that sparks a certain nostalgia, what Kraft calls, "a nice, warm, cosy place". The idea is flowing now. He presses a key. His ears fill with sound.
If you remember a time when using floppy disks didn't seem weird, you're probably at least 30 years old. Floppy disks or diskettes emerged around 1970 and, for a good three decades or so, they were the main way many people stored and backed up their computer data. All the software and programmes they bought came loaded onto clusters of these disks. They are a technology from a different era of computing, but for various reasons floppy disks have an enduring appeal for some which mean they are from dead.
Obsolete, but not gone: The people who won't give up floppy disks
They may have barely enough capacity to store a modern smart phone picture, but some people still love using this technology from the 1980s.
www.bbc.com
