We live in the times of the digital, of the cloud, of the terabytes of data stored on servers permanently connected to the Internet in secret locations. But not so long ago, all our data was not floating in the ethereal, but in something very tangible: square disks that could hold a maximum of 1.44 Mb (less than a high-definition photo). Today they are absolutely obsolete, they are part of another era, yes. Then, why is there a man who earns 1000 dollars a day selling them?
Floppy disk drive all night long
The floppy disk was invented in the late 1960s, went on sale in 1971 and was the standard until it was replaced by the CD-ROM in the late 1990s. But there are a good handful of vital things in our day-to-day lives that have not been updated because it would be more difficult than continuing to use these floppy disks. And if you think I’m talking nonsense, think again.
Boeing 747s, 767s and Airbus A320s, legendary aircraft you’ve probably flown on more than once, receive their updates via floppy disk. In fact, every 28 days an engineer inserts one into his cockpit unit to load important navigation data. But they’re not the only ones you’d never think use it: in the U.S., the Department of Defense stopped using them to coordinate the country’s nuclear forces… in October 2019. Gives confidence, eh?
The San Francisco subway, medical equipment in hundreds of hospitals around the world, the International Space Station or even several animatronic robots use this computer system to be able to have their orders. But of course, where do you buy the diskettes? They are no longer available in stationery stores because nobody asks for them.
There’s a guy from California named Tom Persky who has a warehouse full of 3.5 and 1.44 floppy disks, floppy drives and more. Logically there is less supply, so prices have gone up: a ten-pack is $13 and a fifty-pack can sell for $70. Persky says he sells a thousand units a day, which at a dollar a unit means he made the best investment of his life buying that warehouse.
Since we are revaluing things that we think nobody uses, is it time for the revival of the 56K modem?
Some of the links added in the article are part of affiliate campaigns and may represent benefits for Softonic.
