<div dir="ltr">As members have noted here, floppy disks are actually a pretty robust medium. I worked at Microsoft in the early 1990s, and we regularly heard reports of users retaining floppies over hard disk storage, because of lingering worries about the stability of PC-based hard disks. A marine biologist that I spoke with explained that at sea, hard disks from that era routinely failed when research vessels encountered rough water--so they retained floppy-based systems. Of course, every-expanding software packages made this impractical. But I'm not surprised that many floppy-based solutions are still out there.</div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Nov 5, 2021 at 3:57 AM Schmitt, Martin <<a href="mailto:martin.schmitt@tu-darmstadt.de">martin.schmitt@tu-darmstadt.de</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">



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Dear SIGCIS,
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<div>today, I got a request by a German journalist asking about current uses of floppy disks. Are they still is use somewhere? Are there still users, for example power plants, airlines, banks or so who are using floppy disks? If so, why do they do
 that? I am sure that you can address this question, that was forwarded to me by Daniela Zetti, way better than I could. My first thought were computer hobbyists who are working with old computers and presenting them at Vintage Computing Festivals – cool stuff,
 but I do not think that is what the journalist wants to hear.</div>
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<div>Best </div>
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Martin</div>
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Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter | Post-Doc | digital enthusiast<br>
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<font color="#688821">Technische Universität Darmstadt</font></div>
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Institut für Geschichte</div>
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Fachgebiet Technikgeschichte<br>
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Mail: <a href="mailto:martin.schmitt@tu-darmstadt.de" target="_blank">martin.schmitt@tu-darmstadt.de</a></div>
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Tel: +49  6151-16-57327<br>
<a href="http://www.computerisierung.com" target="_blank">http://www.computerisierung.com</a><br>
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Assoziierter Wissenschaftler<br>
<font color="#005493">LEIBNIZ-ZENTRUM FÜR ZEITHISTORISCHE FORSCHUNG</font><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span> </span>| </span>POTSDAM <br>
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Vice Chair IFIP WG 9.7 „History of computing"<br>
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Zuletzt erschienen: Leslie, Christopher und Martin Schmitt (eds.): Histories of Computing in Eastern Europe, Cham: Springer International Publishing 2019 (IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology 549), <a href="https://www.springer.com/978-3-030-29159-4" target="_blank">https://www.springer.com/978-3-030-29159-4</a><br>
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