posted 10-05- 12:24 PM               

They are also killing of serial ports, CYA.

BUT they are also killing off PS2 mouse and keyboard ports.

That sucks. I like having dedicated ports for these 2 devices. I don't feel like buying a USB keyboard (they always seem expensive) and I don't want my primary imput devices fighting for bandwidth on the USB-us.

Later on the printer port will be gone. I use mine right now for a controller adapter, I guess it will have to be redone for USB also.

posted 10-05- 08:25 PM               

Werner

posted 10-05- 09:17 PM               

About corperations, Yes they will still be avalible on corp computers for a while after that. I don't understand corperation computers not on a network though, good ol foot network I guess.

I personally find floppys insanly unreliable. Most computers are networked or on the net now, I would rather email my homework to school, Its still a very valid use though, I agree.

About PS2, yeah I think PS2 is better, its dedicated to the use, as I said above now your keyboard and mouse will have to fight with other USB devices for bandwidth and power.

I personally find USB worse, my usb mouse didn't work last time I was in safemode, and the whole so called plug and play is a farce.

I personally don't take files with me everywhere. If I I burn it if its too big, or I email it.

I don't even have a floppy in my machine, most newer machines (read p2 or newer) can boot off CDrom.

Really what we need is a small flash drive in every computer to take over from the floppy. Say 50 megs or so.

Tell me you guys don't want that

Really all floppys are for is distributing drivers with new equipment, and CDs have taken over that role. And for taking small files around with you, which a small flash card could do easily.

posted 10-05- 09:44 PM               

Werner

posted 10-05- 09:58 PM               

Whats not to like?

Anyone wishing to read on the other board I was talking about, here is the link.

http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?q=Y&a=tpc&s=50009562&f=24609792&m=2590928582&p=1

They have some more ideas why its good or bad.

posted 10-05- 11:20 PM               

And a guy pointed out that you can do it right now.

In the states at least its not too bad.

22 bucks for a drive and 26 bucks for a 64 meg disk.

Nothing wrong with that, 64 megs of transportable drive space. the reader is USB so it should work with any USB capable computer. The drive is small to so not too much more trouble then bringing your floppys.

posted 10-06- 02:25 PM               

Also is it flash or an actual hard drive?

I would rather have solid state, NON magnetic media.

Either way its a cool product.

posted 10-10- 10:41 PM               

Intel is "asking" motherboard makers to stop making them with floppy controllers or ports.

Thats how, its up to you to think of what "asking" exactly means.

And you don't need to make a boot disk when installing windows, it gives you the option of skiping that.

If you messed up the sentence, no you don't need a floppy to install windows either.

Just boot off the CD. I do it all the time.

I don't have a floppy in my machine at all and havn't since my upgrade.

I did install one for flashing the bios on my last board, but then I found alot of people just flashed off the hard drive, and that does seem safer to me, considering how often floppys mess up.

I'm not really cheering because the floppy will be gone, I don't care if people have the option of using one, I just won't use mine.

What I'm cheering for is hopefully this will push for a new and better replacement for the floppy drive.

I think a solid state, flash memory device should fit that area perfectly.

The only thing is I'm not sure if you can boot off a flash card.

If not they should make one so you can, make a new standard with a drive in the same spot as the floppy, make it a flash memory card, probly way smaller, avalible in tons of different memory sizes, all compatible.

The drive shouldn't cost much more then a floppy costs now, specially when they are manufactured by the millions.

posted 10-11- 03:22 AM               

Windows instal... I use a windows CD, and when I instal from it I always use the option not to cerate a recovery disk, but it always tries to, I never get the option to skip and if I cancel the recovery disk option it stops the whole installation (cool huh) (My Win CD is none bootable)

Flashing BIOS.. Yes, much safer done from the HD, I've flashed in error a couple of times and it's always the floppy drive that didn't work afterwards but the HD still work, so I was able to reflash with my old bios straight from the HD, but had I used a floppy I'd have been screwed.

Flash though is IMO a perfect solution, especialy now that it's such a common thing used by multiple devices, but as far as killing floppies, serial and line ports, mouse and keyboard ports... I think Intel are just being knobs, if I owned a company that was in competition with them in the m/b market, I'd be hoping that they will do all those things, cause I wouldn't and I'd reap the benefits of more sales due to most people realising how foolish they are, my boards would keep them all and have built in USB, giving the customer more choice in how they setup the system.. choice is always good

Again though, I agree, solid state backup would be pretty cool