Doom I and II, Rise of the Triad. Windows 3.1. Anyone else old enough to remember floppy swapping?

  • nocturne@sopuli.xyz
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    6 days ago

    My first copy of Win95 was on floppy, 13 if memory serves me.

    My first computer only had two 5 1/2” floppy drives. Everything required a swap.

    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      I wonder if that’s what my parents mean when they say they used to be into couples swapping.

      Just a couple of floppies. Swapping around. Swinging those floppies. Just a couple of swingers. Swinging and swapping floppies…

      …and then sleeping with each others wives.

    • i_stole_ur_taco@lemmy.ca
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      6 days ago

      My friend’s came on 24 floppies. Maybe you had double density disks or whatever those higher capacity ones were called.

      I remember reading this joke press release about how Microsoft was renaming itself to Moft. Their name appears so much in Windows that the shortened name would let them use one less floppy disk and it would save them so much money. After feeding 24 floppies into a new computer one time I completely believed the joke and embarrassed myself by telling other people the big rename was coming.

      • nocturne@sopuli.xyz
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        5 days ago

        Mine may have come with more than 13, but it was for sure not 24. So it is likely I had high density, or double. In true windows fashion, I never purchased these, my roommate’s friend left them in my dorm room and I never saw him again.

  • audaxdreik
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    6 days ago

    I remember finding Keen Dreams and the original Duke Nukem on 5¼ at a dollar store and having to use my grandma’s old computer to copy them onto 3½. Think I had a 150Mhz Packard Bell running Windows 3.1 at the time. I still think Keen Dreams sucks, I cannot reckon with that game having already played Secret of the Oracle. Original Nukem holds up though, chunky retro fun.

    I also remember getting fitted for my first pair of glasses and then running across the mall to get Space Quest V from a Babbages or some place. I was enthused the whole ride home about how clear I’d be able to see my video games.

    … I was always destined for Lemmy.

  • Metz@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    old enough to remember floppy swapping?

    I’m old enough to remember floppy flipping.

  • Nougat@fedia.io
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    6 days ago

    I used to run DOS 5.2 from a 5.25" on a Tandy 1000. The floppy was infected with the Stoned virus.

  • 1984@lemmy.today
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    6 days ago

    Yeah absolutely. Feels very nostalgic to see floppy disks… Used to have lots of pirated games as a kid.

    And the games were a lot of fun. Every game felt like it was exploring something new. Fun times.

  • Dyskolos@lemmy.zip
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    6 days ago

    These youngsters and their modern floppy witchwork. We real cavemen used tapes. And they were so much cooler than punchcards 😁

    Nothing beats "insert disk 3592"after a day of loading only to see disk #3592 sadly had an error. Maybe a slight exaggeration, but…

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      6 days ago

      A tape loading error after like 10 minutes always felt bad. I had a handful of games that I could never play.

      Being able to fit like 5 games on a single tape was pretty cool though. Better than these mountains of floppies.

      • Dyskolos@lemmy.zip
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        5 days ago

        Hehe, yeah tapes had their up 'n downs. But for an impatient dude like me, they were infuriating… Still lightyears ahead of typing in hex-data from hundreds of pages in magazines for weeks, just to end up with a mildly working version of snake.

        And nowadays a cheap phone is a gazillion times more powerful in every possible aspect. Never even dreamed that big and here we are.

  • Trigger2_2000@sh.itjust.works
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    6 days ago

    I have lots of SW on floppies. Don’t use it anymore, but I still have it! Windows down to ver 1.1, OS/2 2.0 and up, dBase III, Turbo Pascal, etc.