SLOW DEATH OF THE FLOPPY DISK
 By Dan Gutman

 Floppy disks, the storage media that played a big part in launching the
personal computer, will soon go the way of 78 rpm records, eight-track
cassettes and other such dinosaurs.

 As if they suddenly looked up and noticed the 1990s coming on fast, several
major companies have announced developments recently that will move the
industry away from floppies and hard disk drives.

 --The heavily hyped NEXT computer from Steve Jobs will not include a
traditional floppy disk drive.  It is the first computer designed to use
optical disks--a type of compact disk- -as its primary storage media. The
machine will come with the complete works of Shakespeare on a single disk.

 --Maxell recently announced the "Maxell Memory Card."  This is a credit
card-size device that is inserted into a PC to boost its memory or back up
data. A single card can store over 1000K of data.

 --NEC's new "UltraLite" laptop ($2, 999), which was introduced last month,
includes a similar card called a "silicon hard disk."  It functions like a
regular hard disk drive, but uses up less power and contains no moving parts.

 --Sony, Tandy, Canon, Sharp and Olympus have all announced erasable
magneto-optical disk drives that will be available over the next three years.

 It's looking more and more as though optical disks are the storage medium of
the 1990s.

 Why replace the old reliable floppy that we have come to love and trust?

 There are several reasons.  Optical disks store about ten times more data
than floppies.  They can't be bent or folded, like floppies can, so you don't
have to be so careful with them. If they get a little dirty, you can clean
them off with a damp cloth.


                                          
 More than anything else, floppy disks simply aren't dependable. According to
a report in Computer & Software News, most 3.5 inch disks (which have become
the industry standard) fail the quality assurance tests used by the American
National Standards Institute.

 Most computer users agree.  You just don't feel comfortable with data stored
on a floppy disk.

 I remember when home video games first arrived, I felt completely comfortable
popping cartridges in and out of my old Atari VCS. The data was safe.  But as
soon as I got my first computer and was forced to store text on floppies,
problems developed. Disks crashed.  Files wouldn't open. I spent a month
working on an article, and my disk drive destroyed it in about a second.

 Even now, I hold my breath a little every time I do a SAVE.  When a single
speck of dust can trip up a disk drive, it doesn't give you a lot of faith in
your data storage.  The idea of a magnetic head spinning a few hundredths of
an inch over the text of a project I'm working on is terrifying.

 Magnetic media is simply too fragile.
 Compu.s are constantly
 warned to make backup copies of
 anything we do. We're trained to
 accept the fact that sooner or later,
 our hard disk is going to crash on
 us, and take all our data with it.

 We shouldn't have to accept this. There should be a way to store information
with the confidence that it is safe.  Optical disks seem to be the answer.

 So, to the floppy disk and the whole idea of storing data on unstable
magnetic media, I say so long and good riddance.


                               

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