1999: Some people still don’t get the iMac. The new InfoWorld (15 March 1999), in a sidebar on page 40, comments, “There is still no floppy drive on this computer….”

Duh!

In the old days (the mid- to late-1970s), users of serious computers laughed at most personal computers for using those tiny, incompatible 5.25″ floppy disks. “Still no 8″ floppy drive.”

Fifteen years ago, PC users laughed at Mac users about those tiny, incompatible 3.5″ floppy disks. “Still no 5.25″ floppy drive.”

And they laughed about SCSI, which wasn’t as “standard” as all those MFM and RLE drives and proprietary hardcards found in the DOS world.

Eventually the PC world embraced the 3.5″ floppy. And many of the best performing PCs of a few years ago used SCSI for best throughput, not the poky old IDE drives that had become dominant on less expensive clones.

I think they don’t like change – when Apple invents it.

Realizing that the floppy is desperately obsolete, Apple now sells iMacs, Power Macs, and PowerBooks without floppy drives. Add them if you must, but their meager capacity is a joke in this day and age.

But the unnamed InfoWorld reviewer is caught in the past. “Still no 8″ floppy drive. Er, 5.25″ drive. No, make that 3.5″ disk drive.”

Welcome to the future.

keywords: #imac #floppydrive #nofloppy