Jan 27
what if software still shipped on 3.5-inch disks?
Remember the good old 3.5-inch floppy disk? Now remember how annoying it was when you had to install a program that spanned 4 or 5 disks? Well, imagine what life would be like if you had to install today’s bloatware on your computer using floppies. That’s exactly what the designers at Antrepo Design Industry envisioned in their new series series of art prints.
I had to do a double-take when I first saw it, but Adobe Photoshop CS4 would take up 358 floppies, and that’s not the full CS4 suite.
And your little lightweight browser, Firefox, all of a sudden wouldn’t seem particularly compact if it shipped on 36 disks.
And while iTunes 8 is no slouch on 46 floppies, the true heavyweight champion in this poster series has to be EA’s SIMS 3, which would take up an unbelievable 1,760 3.5-inch floppies. Or in other words, a stack of floppies that would be over 19-feet tall when piled one on top of another.
My arm hurts just thinking about having to swap disks that many times. If software companies really wanted to prevent piracy, I suppose they could always go back to distributing their programs on floppies. The number of disks you’d have to copy would be more than enough of a deterrent.
If you’re looking for some great art for your computer room, you can grab a set of 4 limited edition, hand-signed digital prints (each one measuring in at a substantial 18.9″ x 26.8″) over at the AntrepoShop for $120 (USD).
I wonder how many floppies it would take to install Metal Gear Solid 4 on my PS3.
[via Behance]
3 Comments so far
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I remember installing Win 3.1 from 11(?) floppies. Very annoying. The worrying thing is that a lot of this new software has bloated out beyond control simply because it is easy to transport the bloat. Programs have grown in function, but not in proportion to the MB bulk.
I just spent last weekend backing up my 2008 photos onto DVD’s. Each image would not fit on a floppy… but the entire set would need something like 36,000 floppies! Filling floppy took something like a minute, so doing this backup to floppies would have taken 600-800hours.
Oh, and I forgot to say, nice idea for some images. I might find some way to borrow that for myself! :-)
I totally agree! I still have Win 3 on 5 1/4 floppy… imagine that as a backup. :) No, nothing really functional would fit on a floppy anymore… (like you said) even an image from a modern camera would be two large to fit as a whole file. Crazy!