Sometime in the early 1990’s, I attended my 1st Educational Conference. One of the first sessions I chose to attend dealt with the use of technology in educational settings. Amazingly enough, that was a fairly progressive idea at that time!
As the session began, the presenter held up a small, black plastic square. Perhaps, the people sitting at just the right angle caught a glimmer of the metal that protected the inside, but most of us just saw a small, black plastic square. “This,” began the presenter, “is a disk.” At that moment, I knew I was in trouble! Certainly, I had a lot to learn about educational technology but if there were people sitting in that room that couldn’t identify a floppy disk, that idea had much further to travel than I knew.
Somewhere between the beginning of that session and today, the floppy disk is no more. I first realized this not too long ago when I copied a file to print at my child’s school and realized that NONE of the computers in the school had floppy drives any more. Then, in order to be able to use all those backup floppies that I had saved over the years, I bought an external floppy drive for my own computer and found that I only had to pay $17.99 to get it! Today, though, I knew it was official when I read the headline “Disk Joins VHS, 8-track on techno trash heap”.
Honestly, it makes me a little sad to see it go. Not because I don’t use CDs and DVDs for storage and not because hard drive storage capacity is not priced reasonably. I guess there is something in me that doesn’t like to see anything outlive it’s usefulness. Truth be told, I am probably a little afraid that, someday, I’ll outlive my own. Do me a favor though…if and when I do, find me a spot the shelf next to something a little more glamorous than a floppy!
