From Chuck E. Cheese to Boeing 747s, the floppy disk lives on

[midian182]

In brief: If you're old enough to know that floppy disks are more than just save icons, nostalgically recalling pulling down write-protect tabs, scribbling on the labels, and those storage boxes with the lockable lids, then take heart in the knowledge that the 3.5-inch floppy is still clinging to life, even at Chuck E. Cheese.

The revelation comes from Chuck E. Cheese employee Stewart, who goes by the TikTok handle showbizpizzaman. His viral clip shows that the company is still using floppy disks, which can hold 1.44MB, to store the latest routines, lighting, and sync data for the mechanical animals; the one he loads is called 'Evergreen Show 2023.'

Those who were around in the 1990s will likely smile with familiarity at how long the whole process takes as the disk is loaded into the "Cyberstar" rack-mount computer system that dates from around 1998.

@showbizpizzaman

How to install a new show at Chuck E. Cheese

⬠original sound - Stewart

As Ars Technica notes, the computer extracts .CEC files from a self-extracting file called EGREEN23.EXE that was compressed using the v2.50 shareware version of PKSFX by PKWARE, which was copyrighted in 1999.

Sadly for retro fans, Stewart says the video marks the last time Chuck E. Cheese will be using a floppy disk as the company is upgrading to a new file system for its animatronic creatures. Fewer than 50 of the company's 600 restaurants still use floppy disks for the 25-year-old Studio C layout of animatronics.

A Chuck E. Cheese disk for sale on eBay (via BuzzFeed)

Floppy disks were one of the entries on our 'Once-Iconic Tech Products That Are Now a Fading Memory' feature, but the archaic technology is still being used today. Wired writes that the majority of companies still using them are small businesses with tight margins that either never got around to updating their aging systems or simply can't afford to.

One of the most famous areas where 3.5-inch floppy disks are still used is for applying software updates to older Boeing 747s planes still in service. Tom Persky, founder of floppydisk.com, last year confirmed that he still receives orders from airlines. "Probably half of the air fleet in the world today is more than 20 years old and still uses floppy disks in the avionics," he said.

The military was also a long-term user of floppy disks. It was only in 2019 that the Pentagon stopped using 1970's IBM Series-1 computers - complete with eight-inch floppy disks - as part of its nuclear weapons systems. The agency moved away from this method of storage and opted for SSDs instead; there are unlikely to be any floppy drives in the $75 million network the Air Force just acquired to protect its nuclear silos.

Floppy disks remain a common sight in other areas, such as medical devices and some government agencies, partly due to their reliability. But drives and the disks are becoming harder to find and thus more expensive – 8-inch floppies are almost extinct – so don't expect them to be around for another 30+ years.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/97854-chuck-e-cheese-boeing-747s-floppy-disk-continues.html

 

[yRaz]

There was something satisfying about the click of a floppy drive when inserted. It was very mechanical and you just don't get that anymore.

 

[MarkHughes]

There was something satisfying about the click of a floppy drive when inserted. It was very mechanical and you just don't get that anymore.

I have often wondered if that is why people like vinyl records, The whole ceremony of removing the record from the sleeve, cleaning, placing and positioning the needle, the crackles at the start etc, All makes for a more involved experience. Same with floppies, I still use my Amiga and there is something about unboxing the disc, inserting it with a mechanical clunk and hearing the sounds of it being read, Like it builds some anticipation and get's you involved. My laptop on the other hand is silent unless the fans run.

 

[AIC1Drew]

It lives on!

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme...reates-the-first-128gb-1-44-inch-floppy-drive

 

[Uncle Al]

If you're old enough to know that floppy disks are more than just save icons, nostalgically recalling pulling down write-protect tabs,

Old enough? Shoot, I can remember having to use 6" wide video tape for production back in school ..... we'd take the old one's and cut them down to 1/4 inch and use them in our reel to reel take recorders ..... the quality was amazing!

 

[Hodor]

Here's a guy who knows a thing or two about floppy drives. And probably has a spare FDD for a Boeing in distress.

 

[Ben Myers]

Why am I not surprised at this article? Late last year, I had a project to fix an old MS-DOS Pentium system which controlled a factory machine. The fix involved replacement of the hard drive that had failed with an SSD that had the full compliment of software needed to run the machine. But the client's floppies were all bad, some not so bad, as I was able to scavenge the software needed to run the ISA bus boards connected to the machine. One set of floppies was beyond recovery, so I bought another board complete with 3.5" AND 5.25" floppies. Lucky I had a 5.25" floppy drive on hand, because the 3.5" drives provided with the second board were unreadable.