PC World declares the floppy disk dead

RIP

30 January 2007 0:01 GMT / By Amber Maitland

PC World has put the final nail in the coffin of the floppy disk by announcing that it is no longer replenishing its supply of the data storage.

The disks, which were capable of storing 1.44MB of data, are no longer adequate for most computing requirements today.

PC World says that 98% of PCs that it sells no longer have floppy disk drives, and by summer, that is expected to reach 100%.

The first floppy disks were made by IBM in 1971, and were 8-inches in size. The 5.5-inch disk drives and diskettes became much more common.

“The sound of a computer's floppy disk drive will be as closely associated with 20th century computing as the sound of a computer dialing in to the Internet”, said Bryan Magrath, commercial director of PC World.

“...the floppy disk looks increasingly quaint and simply isn't able to compete.”

All this begs the question of course, of how long it will be before CDs and DVDs are also considered obsolete forms of storage.