
What are the Windows A: and B: drives used for? - why-el
http://superuser.com/questions/231273/what-are-the-windows-a-and-b-drives-used-for
======
bitwize
You know you're getting old when you are shocked that someone asks what A: and
B: are for, having never seen nor conceptualized that they were once floppy
drive letters.

~~~
smacktoward
Seriously!

I remember buying my first box of ten 3.5" floppies, which stored 1.44MB of
data EACH, after years of using the older 360KB 5.25" disks, and marveling how
much storage I was carrying in that little box...

Kids today, with their USB sticks and DVD drives and Internets. Grumble
grumble. Get off my lawn!

~~~
Splines
There's the 720kb 3.5" floppies too. I remember there was a shady outfit(s)
that sold punchers you could use on these disks to trick the drive into
thinking it was a 1.44mb disk.

Of course, those 720kb disks were never intended to store 1.44mb of data, so
while you could write that data to the disk, and maybe even read it
immediately after, the odds that you could read it again awhile later were
pretty low.

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jader201
Duplicates:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2095628>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2998973>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3775943>

~~~
why-el
My own link is a duplicate? :)

~~~
jader201
Yes. And that link is also a duplicate. See [1] for more information.

[1] <https://www.google.com/search?q=recursion>

:)

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Lockyy
I used floppy disks up until I was around 8-10 years old. Around then my
transition away from floppies into cds was pretty much at the point that I
never used them again. I occasionally used floppies in primary school but not
very often. I only ever used 3.5' however.

I'm 20 now and I didn't remember that floppies were A: and B: so went into the
article expecting some interesting explanation and then face-palmed when I
realised.

If you'd asked me what A: and B: where I wouldn't have been able to tell you
and I used floppies. I feel young...

I saw some floppies for sale in wh smith the other day. I might buy a set.

~~~
kstenerud
I used tapes until I was around 12 years old. Around then my transition away
from tapes into floppies was pretty much at the point I never used them again
(except for music, until CDs took over).

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zephjc
What _I_ want to know is how long MS will keep using drive letters with
Windows. Drive letters and backslashes for path separators are relics of a
bygone age.

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johngalt
Questions I've received from the newer guys getting into IT.

"Why did people have computers with no internet? What did you do with it?"

"What is a BBS?"

"How did you know what to type at a command line?"

~~~
bdunbar
_"Why did people have computers with no internet? What did you do with it?"_

I think about that, now and again. Mostly when I find myself with a laptop and
no wireless or paired phone. IIRC ..

Played Civilization. Played Sim City. CompuServe. Work.

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jbattle
I miss the 3.5" disks - those things had a really appealing appearance. The
hard(ish) case and the sliding door gave them this sense that they would keep
your data safe forever. Of course, I was just an impressionable kid, but
whoever the designer was for those things - you left me with a lasting
impression.

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octotoad
Feels strange to realize that there are Windows/PC-using people out there that
may have never dealt with a machine that has a floppy drive. Doesn't seem that
long ago that they were a standard component. I can still remember Dell
releasing their first system that didn't include one.

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bdunbar
Change happens. When I got my first real job in IT, one of our tasks was
moving data from 8-inch to 5-inch floppy.

I hasten to add this was not - for the junior guys - real hard. Walk by the
machine every so often, switch out the disks, hit [return], come back in a few
hours.

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golgo13
Makes me wonder how long the "Save" button will stay as a floppy disk.

~~~
kennu
In the operating system I'm running, there's no "Save" any more..

~~~
Achshar
chrome os?

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MLMcMillion
My A: is my physical Blu-Ray burner, and my B: is a virtual drive.

<http://i.imgur.com/rGp12.png>

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entropyie
Yeah, thought this was some kind of joke question, and I'm only 29 ;)

I used 360k 5.25 floppies when I was a kid...

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skibob1027
Is this post a bad omen for Hacker News? In my experience HN has been a safe
haven for higher-level tech posts, news, and information; this seems very
elementary.

