Remembering the Sneakernet

spinbackwards

Eagle, CO

Last updated on Aug 2, 2022

Posted on Aug 2, 2022

Jeff and I were talking this morning about transferring data. Then he said, "kinda like the Sneakernet".

The Sneakernet is how we transferred data before we had the Internet. It went like this:
Put a floppy disk (floppy) into the source computer's floppy drive, execute the copy command using DOS, eject the floppy, insert the floppy into the floppy drive on the target computer, copy the files in using the copy command.

Sometimes the floppy would get stuck in the drive, or the copy command would fail, or the floppy was bad. I can recall showing up somewhere with my floppy's then learning the data didn't copy. So then I'd have to drive back to my office, start over. Or, thinking I had a good backup of my data on floppy's, only to learn the disks were bad.

Y'all got it easy now.

It's fun to think about the old days.
tty next time,

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