Firefox Floppy Disks

Posted by JustZisGuy on Sun, 12/16/2007 - 01:11Personal

OK, so floppy disks are obsolete. These days USB flash drives can be used even on 95, NT 4, and DOS, but there is nothing quite like having software physically at your fingertips. To that end I printed up some 3.5" floppy disk labels and created a setup self extractor using Winzip to span the install file across the disks.

It took only 5 1.44 meg floppy disks! Compared to some software that I have had to install from dozens of floppy disks, Firefox is downright tiny. I probably could have gotten it down to 4 disks if I had formatted them using DMF (1.6 megs).


 

Awesome,  but what if I encounter a PC/AT with only a 5.25" 1.2 meg drive?

 

Well, for some sick reason I actually have a 5.25" 1.2 meg drive in my machine so I used the same self extracting setup on these disks. These disks now actually have Firefox on them!

Could I get any more sick?


 

Sadly my 8" drive is busted. But I did once have it hooked to a PC. (To a PC it looks and works just like a 5.25" 1.2 meg floppy drive). Weighs more than 1000 USB flash drives I think. The system the drive was from ran Microsoft XENIX! So I felt a label that looked like it was written with a typewriter was more appropriate.



And for my next trick, perhaps I should try paper tape.

 

 

 


Submitted by g0kb3rk on Mon, 12/24/2007 - 21:02.

Good ol' floppy drives. My favorite games of my childhood were all on floppy drives. How I miss them! Now Firefox, the idea is good and sweet but who has 3.5" floppy drives nowadays?



Submitted by SeanBlader on Fri, 12/21/2007 - 18:40.

Call me nostalgic, but how do I order a copy on 5.25?

Submitted by whcarlinjr on Fri, 12/21/2007 - 18:10.

5.25" DD = ~360k per disk

 It would require 17 or 18 of these disks to install Firefox2.


 

Submitted by on Thu, 12/20/2007 - 21:24.

 This will be on the Top Posts in no time ;)

Jamey Boje
SFx Administrator

Submitted by angrykeyboarder on Thu, 12/20/2007 - 20:40.

There is somebody out there with more free time than me! 

Submitted by LIJI on Thu, 12/20/2007 - 12:53.

Haha! I didn't see any of these 5.2" floppies since I was 4! Anyway they look awesome, too bad floppies are extincting soon and the only thing that will remain of them would be the "Save" icon in some programs...

-LIJI of the Neatwares Network and Neatwares Studio

Submitted by wingie on Mon, 12/17/2007 - 23:54.

Next: Punch cards!

Submitted by Andrew T. on Mon, 12/17/2007 - 19:01.

I like the look of those 5¼" floppies!  The sad thing is that I could conceivably use them in my computer...

(As a side note, I wonder if Netscape ever shipped commercially on 5¼" disks in the mid '90s?)

Submitted by Kelson on Mon, 12/17/2007 - 18:01.

And the different label styles are absolutely perfect.

--

Can Firefox users and Opera fans agree on anything?
The Alternative Browser Alliance

Submitted by Stormbringer on Mon, 12/17/2007 - 03:34.

If they have the Internet at all, even cretaceous computers with floppy drives can do their own downloading instead of dealing with discs. I like the printing, though.

Submitted by JustZisGuy on Mon, 12/17/2007 - 04:36.

You would be surprised how many people have come to me and ask for a Firefox CD because it is conceptually easier for them and feels safer to them. 

Also, elsewhere some folks were complaining about how would they get Firefox if Windows didn't come with IE. Well, here are some floopies for them! I mean, really they didn't just "download" that new computer they bought, did they? If it wasn't new, then they had to install Windows from somewhere. Install Firefox the same way.

In the old days we got our browsers by walking to a store and buying a copy!

Submitted by Ken Saunders on Sun, 12/16/2007 - 01:31.

That's good stuff. Very entertaining and interesting.


Ken