It could soon be time to bid a final farewell to floppy disks
Floppy disk market only has another four years, according to industry expert
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The market for one of the most iconic items in the technology industry is only set to hold up for “another four years” according to floppy disc tycoon, Tom Persky.
The US businessman, the self-described “last man standing” in the fading business, runsfloppydisk.com, one of the last places on the internet you can purchase the vintage technology.
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Sony, the last company to produce floppy discs, stopped manufacturing them in March 2011, and Perksy has been mainly running his business from a one million plus order made almost a decade ago.
Who still uses floppy disks?
Quite a lot of people apparently, at least up until very recently.
Boeing 747s, which were only retired in July 2020, continued to use 3.5-inch floppy discs to store updated navigational databases.
Unsettlingly, it wasn’t until 2019 that the US military stopped using 8-inch floppy disks in a 1970s computer, the Strategic Automated Command and Control System, or SACCS, to receive nuclear launch orders.
Japan in particular has found it hard tolet go of its love of floppy discs, and they are still popular for usage by local government
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In one area of Tokyo, Chiyoda Ward, they aren’t on track to completely remove floppy discs until their fiscal year 2026 according to reporting byNikkei.
An edict from the country’s digital minister, Taro Kono, declared “war” on floppy disks, as well as CD roms, as part of a wider campaign to cut down on the use of outdated tech.
But it’s unlikely we’ll see floppy discs shoot up in popularity ever again.
Even the traditionally hardcore computing-friendly Linux community istaking steps to phase out its floppy disc driver, as “actual working physical floppy hardware is getting hard to find”.
If you’d like to indulge your nostalgia for the once great technology, you can head here to readFloppy Disk Fever: The Curious Afterlives of a Flexible Medium, a book where Persky among other experts, talk about the medium.
Will McCurdy has been writing about technology for over five years. He has a wide range of specialities including cybersecurity, fintech, cryptocurrencies, blockchain, cloud computing, payments, artificial intelligence, retail technology, and venture capital investment. He has previously written for AltFi, FStech, Retail Systems, and National Technology News and is an experienced podcast and webinar host, as well as an avid long-form feature writer.
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