Japan Waves Goodbye to the Floppy Disk

It was 2 years ago when Taro Kono, Japan's Minister for Digital Transformation declared "war" (his words) on floppy disks. From all reports, this war has now been won quietly - no disk manufacturing plants have been occupied by troops, for instance.

We have won the war on floppy disks on June 28!

Taro Kono, 28/06/24

Factors like conservative business attitudes & wildly varying computer literacy have resulted in a reliance upon floppies in 21st century Japan. In fact, a government committee identified nearly 2,000 areas where businesses are still required to use the obsolete media when storing data or making applications!

Kono's updated regulations will allow business owners to use online services instead. Having won this battle, he has apparently now turned his eyes toward another 80's office stalwart - the fax machine.

Who Uses Disks Anyway?

Among my close friends & family, I'm the only person who still possesses a small amount of floppy disks. The media is still quite popular with old-school producers and fans of retro-tech, so as a member of both camps, it's hardly surprising. Floppies still see some use in:

• Retro computers - for instance, all of my Amigas still have working floppy drives, including a fancy-pants 1.76MB drive, Nearly two megs of storage! Most of my machines don't have easily-accessible mass storage; CF/SD cards buried deep within - so transferring samples or songs to them, via a USB floppy drive, is actually quite handy. The crunchy sounds of a disk drive are somehow soothing, too! Thanks to a feature called CrossDOS, I can read/write vintage Mac & PC DOS disks, also.
• Vintage samplers - Akai's, Ensoniq's, Emu's, Yamaha's and most other brands rely on floppy storage for sound samples and patches.
• Synths & Keyboards - 90's ROMpler workstations use floppies not for samples; but for sequencer, pattern & patch data. This paradigm extends to older arranger keyboards and even some home organs too.

Of course, many owners have replaced their drives with floppy emulators in later years, including me! All of my samplers boast HXC or Gotek units, able to store 1000's of virtual disks on a USB stick. They feature small screens to display the selected disk. I chose this path of limiting floppies to a single platform, due to the reality that disks are failing. Mold can be an issue with vintage disks and runs you the risk of a ruined floppy drive. Additionally, the specialised work of servicing these drives takes a skillset that may be lost to time, in the coming decades.

So even though it makes perfect sense, I for one will miss those musical ticks & whirrs. Let's raise a glass to the humble floppy, and let us know your double/high density memories!

Posted by MagicalSynthAdventure an expert in synthesis technology from last Century and Amiga enthusiast.

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