So do you remember the last time you used a 3.5-inch floppy disk? Now, let's see, here... if we recall correctly, the last time we used any of those around here at the AtAT compound was about three years ago-- and that was just because we needed something cheap, useless, and potentially hurty to hurl at a door-to-door salesman that couldn't take a hint. For the record, AOL CD-ROMs make better drink coasters, but floppies are definitely more effective as painful but reasonably harmless projectile weapons and sales deterrents.

Anyway, what we're trying to say is that, despite a modicum of nervous fuss that arose when Uncle Steve drove a translucent blue-green stake through the floppy drive back in May of 1998, we really don't miss those pesky little things at all. There are a gazillion reasons why floppies just don't cut it anymore: they're slow, they're noisy, they're incredibly error-prone, and you'd need well over three thousand of them to store as much data as you can tote around on a single iPod. Granted, they're still a decent transport medium for relatively teensy files like word processing documents, but these days, anything small enough to cram on a floppy is petite enough to email instead-- even over a dial-up line. In short, coming up on four years later, we seriously doubt that many Mac fans are still mourning the passing of the floppy drive.

Meanwhile, over there in the Wintel camp, they're still clinging to their floppies like grim death-- but maybe not for much longer. As pointed out by faithful viewer Jeff the Meek, everyone's favorite new Mac convert David Coursey discusses how Bill Gates may soon lead the Windows crowd marching bravely into 1998. Apparently Microsoft is toying with the idea of finally eliminating that archaic storage device from its requirements for a "Designed For Windows" PC. That doesn't mean that PC manufacturers would have to go floppyless, mind you-- just that they could leave them out, save a little money, and still keep their hardware eligible for Microsoft's "Good Kowtowing" Seal of Approval.

This is just something Microsoft's kicking around, mind you, so there's no guarantee it's actually going to happen any time soon; we all know how twitchy that company gets when it comes to change. And even if Billy-boy does opt to yank the floppy from the "required equipment" list, that doesn't mean that floppy drives and their hellspawn media are going to vanish overnight. But that's good, because really, you never know when someone's going to ring your doorbell and try to sell you a really fine set of encyclopedias.