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The market for one of the tech industry’s most iconic items will only last “four more years,” according to floppy disk tycoon Tom Persky.
The American businessman, the self-proclaimed “last man standing” in the fading business, is walking floppydisk.com (opens in new tab)one of the last places on the internet where you can buy the vintage technology.
Sony, the last company to produce floppy disks, stopped producing them in March 2011, and Perksy ran his business primarily from an order of more than a million that was made nearly a decade ago.
Who still uses floppy disks?
A lot of people apparently, at least until recently.
Boeing 747s, which were not retired until July 2020, continued to use 3.5-inch floppy disks to store updated navigation databases.
Disturbingly, the US military only stopped using 8-inch floppy disks in a 1970s computer, the Strategic Automated Command and Control System, or SACCS, to receive nuclear launch orders until 2019.
Japan, in particular, has found it difficult to let go of its love of floppy disks, and they are still popular for local government use
In an area of Tokyo, Chiyoda Ward, they are not on track to completely remove floppy disks until their fiscal year 2026, according to reports Nikkei (opens in new tab).
An edict from the country’s digital minister, Taro Kono, declared “war” on floppy disks and CD-ROMs, as part of a wider campaign to reduce the use of outdated technology.
But it’s unlikely that floppy disks will ever rise in popularity again.
Even the traditionally hardcore computer-friendly Linux community is take steps to phase out the floppy disk driver (opens in new tab)because “real working physical floppy hardware is hard to find”.
If you want to nurture your nostalgia for the once great technology, go here to read Floppy Disk Fever: The Curious Afterlife of a Flexible Medium (opens in new tab)a book in which Persky, among other experts, talks about the medium.
- Tired of putting up with vintage technology? Check out our guide to the best cloud storage