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(Ars Technica)   Former Showbiz Pizza that became Chuck E. Cheese may not be using floppy disks much longer   (arstechnica.com) divider line
27
    More: Misc, Sony, DVD, Chuck E. Cheese employee, rack-mount computer system, Stewart Coonrod, dance show, TikTok video, CEC files  
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1138 clicks; posted to Fandom » on 12 Jan 2023 at 1:35 PM (10 weeks ago)   |   Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook



27 Comments     (+0 »)
View Voting Results: Smartest and Funniest
 
kdawg7736 [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-01-12 1:44:11 PM  
I am just amazed someone is still using floppy disks in 2023.
 
leviosaurus [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-01-12 1:57:43 PM  

kdawg7736: I am just amazed someone is still using floppy disks in 2023.


It's pretty impressive that a 24 year old system is still fully functional. They built those things to last!

Best part - they are simple enough for a teenager to operate. That's really, really good design. The teenagers who were running this system in 1998 are the parents of the teenagers running it today.
 
Kris_Romm
2023-01-12 2:10:43 PM  
Shocked it's the newer 3 1/2 inch size and not the older 5 1/4.
 
enry [TotalFark]
2023-01-12 2:16:59 PM  
I was watching one of those how it's made and they were covering player pianos.

The worker did all the work composing on an iPad and the transferred it to an Apple II+ to drive the machine that punched the tape.
 
The Silver Mullet
2023-01-12 2:17:00 PM  
Charles Entertainment Cheese
 
6nome
2023-01-12 2:21:21 PM  
Chunky cheese
 
maxheck
2023-01-12 2:29:13 PM  

Kris_Romm: Shocked it's the newer 3 1/2 inch size and not the older 5 1/4.


5-1/4" floppies, even old school 8" still exist for some industrial control systems, which is what an animatronic setup is is at it's core. You don't need a huge amount of data to program dance moves for an robot with a limited range of motions, you just have to sync the motion track with the DVD music / video track.
 
bughunter [recently expired TotalFark]
2023-01-12 2:32:39 PM  

kdawg7736: I am just amazed someone is still using floppy disks in 2023.


They make a pill for that now.
 
MindStalker
2023-01-12 2:35:19 PM  
Weird, I worked at one a long time ago, I swear they used BetaMax tapes. I guess that was before floppy/dvd
 
maxheck
2023-01-12 2:39:34 PM  

maxheck: Kris_Romm: Shocked it's the newer 3 1/2 inch size and not the older 5 1/4.

5-1/4" floppies, even old school 8" still exist for some industrial control systems, which is what an animatronic setup is is at it's core. You don't need a huge amount of data to program dance moves for an robot with a limited range of motions, you just have to sync the motion track with the DVD music / video track.
 
oldfarthenry [TotalFark]
2023-01-12 2:50:36 PM  
My old "hard drive" is decidedly not "floppy" at the thought of this.
 
Nimbull
2023-01-12 3:21:34 PM  
They could have just taken an image of that floppy and put it on one of those Gotek drives that use USB thumb drives with floppy images to simulate a floppy disk drive. I think those things are like $20 or so on Amazon last I saw.
 
madgonad [OhFark]
2023-01-12 3:22:57 PM  
Back in the late 90s I ran a chain of family fun centers. One had an animatronic show. The show ran on PCMCIA hard drives (one for each show) and the controller had eight slots (we only bought five shows). They were 170MB drives. Each drive held the control files for the animations and audio tracks for the music and voices. It was pretty cool at the time.
 
kdawg7736 [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-01-12 3:23:28 PM  

leviosaurus: kdawg7736: I am just amazed someone is still using floppy disks in 2023.

It's pretty impressive that a 24 year old system is still fully functional. They built those things to last!

Best part - they are simple enough for a teenager to operate. That's really, really good design. The teenagers who were running this system in 1998 are the parents of the teenagers running it today.


Thanks for making us feel old! I turned 13 in 1998 and remember how great Windows 98 was.
 
RogermcAllen [OhFark]
2023-01-12 3:36:33 PM  
In case you aren't familiar with Rockafire Explosion:
Ms New Booty * Bubba Sparxxx * The Rock-afire Explosion
Youtube YUXkUSJkhTc
 
sirrerun
2023-01-12 4:09:53 PM  

kdawg7736: I am just amazed someone is still using floppy disks in 2023.


https://news.yahoo.com/remember-floppy-disks-supplier-says-141511077.html
 
zez
2023-01-12 4:23:58 PM  
This movie is interesting, but it's also one of the saddest things I've ever seen.

Rockafire Explosion Documentary
Youtube gTmhS6hcY-A
 
FatherChaos [TotalFark]
2023-01-12 5:51:22 PM  
i.imgflip.comView Full Size
 
Neondistraction
2023-01-12 11:11:08 PM  

Nimbull: They could have just taken an image of that floppy and put it on one of those Gotek drives that use USB thumb drives with floppy images to simulate a floppy disk drive. I think those things are like $20 or so on Amazon last I saw.


That's assuming those things have a USB port.  Considering how old they are that's unlikely.
 
shabu
2023-01-13 12:46:45 AM  
My dad was in a federal grand jury for a few years for a case against the mob connection for ShowBiz. They were also embedded in porn. The porn created the capital for the more legit looking pizza chain.

He told me little about what he heard because it shook him badly. He was a farm kid who had no idea how nasty the world could be. But he told me about the time the lead actress from Debbie Does Dallastestified. We both had to pretend we had only heard about the movie. At one point it became so obvious we were BSing each other that we started laughing. Mom was in the room though, so we worked that story like we were pro wrestlers recording a promo.
 
kdawg7736 [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-01-13 1:32:10 AM  

sirrerun: kdawg7736: I am just amazed someone is still using floppy disks in 2023.

https://news.yahoo.com/remember-floppy-disks-supplier-says-141511077.html


You know what, I remember that article now. I think it even made it onto FARK.
 
Mad_Radhu
2023-01-13 1:33:45 AM  

Nimbull: They could have just taken an image of that floppy and put it on one of those Gotek drives that use USB thumb drives with floppy images to simulate a floppy disk drive. I think those things are like $20 or so on Amazon last I saw.


That probably adds unnecessary cost and complexity compared to just mailing out a floppy every so often.

Simulating the floppy drive could be also failure-prone since it looks like the system boots from the floppy and then runs a batch file that unzips and copies over the new .CEC files to the computer.
 
TTFK
2023-01-13 7:50:14 AM  

kdawg7736: I am just amazed someone is still using floppy disks in 2023.


There are several that still do, particularly medical fields and airlines.
 
Ed Grubermann [TotalFark]
2023-01-13 4:53:34 PM  
Fark user imageView Full Size
 
maxheck
2023-01-13 9:49:31 PM  
Fun fact, I still have 8" 5-1/4" and 3-1/2" floppies. I guess I'm a "prepper."
 
maxheck
2023-01-13 9:53:51 PM  

maxheck: Fun fact, I still have 8" 5-1/4" and 3-1/2" floppies. I guess I'm a "prepper."
 
maxheck
2023-01-13 10:20:29 PM  
Also, had an RCA 1702, That was pretty much your base computer.
 
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