Journal damn_registrars's Journal: I Think Apple Actually Did Do One Favor For Me... 3
I've mentioned a few times here that I used to work at a CompUSA - back when they were an American company. In a discussion here recently I came to realize that Apple actually did do a favor for me once, years ago. Of course, they didn't do it with me in mind, but I did benefit from it, and I thank them for it.
I came to realize that Apple helped to kill the terrible, terrible, stupid, crappy, lousy, floppy-disc-based Sony Mavica digital cameras that I sold far too many of. Of course, Apple didn't do this on purpose. The decision they made had that effect, however. I was selling Mavicas at the same time when the very first iMac came out. I remember the aggravation when the green-only were replaced with the fruity colors, and how we had to order the fruity colors in equal numbers regardless of which colors sold the best.
That said, the iMac did one thing that drove some customers up the wall but gave me a reason to (later) celebrate. The iMac helped kill the floppy drive (and disc). Sure, with the first generation, we sold a lot of USB floppy drives. Second generation, not quite so many. Third, even fewer, and so on. Pretty soon people did start to realize how terrible and unreliable floppies really were. It wasn't long after that the iMacs started shipping with CD-R drives, and not long after that the USB memory sticks came down in price.
So a very belated thank-you to Apple. You helped kill off a terrible product made by someone else. And since our bonuses ("spiffs") at CompUSA were so meager I didn't make shit by selling the overpriced Sony cameras anyways.
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I came to realize that Apple helped to kill the terrible, terrible, stupid, crappy, lousy, floppy-disc-based Sony Mavica digital cameras that I sold far too many of. Of course, Apple didn't do this on purpose. The decision they made had that effect, however. I was selling Mavicas at the same time when the very first iMac came out. I remember the aggravation when the green-only were replaced with the fruity colors, and how we had to order the fruity colors in equal numbers regardless of which colors sold the best.
That said, the iMac did one thing that drove some customers up the wall but gave me a reason to (later) celebrate. The iMac helped kill the floppy drive (and disc). Sure, with the first generation, we sold a lot of USB floppy drives. Second generation, not quite so many. Third, even fewer, and so on. Pretty soon people did start to realize how terrible and unreliable floppies really were. It wasn't long after that the iMacs started shipping with CD-R drives, and not long after that the USB memory sticks came down in price.
So a very belated thank-you to Apple. You helped kill off a terrible product made by someone else. And since our bonuses ("spiffs") at CompUSA were so meager I didn't make shit by selling the overpriced Sony cameras anyways.
Floppies sucked (Score:1)
Yes, we know. Glad they are gone.
The thing that sucks the most right now? It would probably have to be DVD recorders. Most pointless shitty technology ever devised. Too small for backups, too slow to be useful. I hate them now, in 10 years I will hate them even more. The last thing I need in my house is a thousand recorded DVD disks.
Re: (Score:2)
I can't agree; I have one and it's handy for transferring my VHS recordings to DVD. I have shelves and shelves of analog and digital data -- books, VHS tapes, CDs, DVDs. I have so much analog data on casette, VHS, and LP I'll probably never get it all digitized. Plus two whole shelves of CDs for old video games. They go in the computer only when they're not there to begin with, I need or want to access the data, and then they stay there.
I'm sure I have well over a thousand DVDs and CDs. They'd take up a who
Not so sure Apple killed them (Score:2)
I think what killed the floppy was the thumb drive. The thumb drive completely obsoleted the floppy. No moving parts, much smaller, far more durable, and holds a whole lot more data. The one in my pocket is 8 gigs, that's sixteen thousand floppies worth of data.
I can remember zipping MP3s just to get one song to fit on a stack of floppies, back before the turn of the century when CD burners were expensive.