Vintage Storage

I went through my old photo boxes the other day. I have them labeled for bienniums.  I treat them like scrap books, too. I throw pictures, cards and stuff into each two-year box.  In back tracking, I found some pre-2007 pictures in an unlabeled box.  

I found these old floppy disks.

I 

I didn't really know what to do with them, so I took them into work.
I mean, I didn't see any reason to possibly crash my home computer.

I placed the disks into my hard-drive.  Nothing.

I  pulled it out, tried another. Nothing.

What happened to plug and play?

I asked my co-worker if he thought that he could pull the pictures off of the floppy disk and make a cd for me.

I was met with laughter

Between guffaws, he asked me to repeat myself

"JibJab, I have these 3.5 disks here of old pictures. "

"What did you say?"

"I have these floppy disks. Do you think you can open them?  My computer doesn't seem to recognize them."

"Did you say floppy disks?"

I just stared at him..

"Yes, a floppy disk.  Now can you try to open it??????"

 He had no luck. I didn't expect this response from Jibjab, he is over 5 years old. I mean his is over 50 years old.   Of course, he had seen a floppy disk before.

So, we (together) went into the third office which belonged to the youngest member of the office. In hindsight, Jibjab had no reason to accompany me into Ambriel's office. 

"Ambriel. Jibjab and I cannot open these disks."

"Did you say disks?"

I hear Jibjab snickering behind me.

"For heaven's sake, can you open the disks?"

(ha, ha) "Why do you have disks?" (ha, ha)

I had to explain that I wanted to tidy up my photographs.  I wanted to move the pictures off the disks onto a cd-rom. Being only five years younger than I, I saw no reason for her to mock me. 

I mean, really...

I did not understand why this brought on so much laughter from my co-workers.  I still do not.

Ambriel's computer opened the files.  She laughed and laughed at the quality of 35 mm pictures.  She said, "Oh Gawd, I forgot how horrible 35 mm was."

Ambriel was the person who dragged me to the electronics store to purchase my first digital camera back in 2007. She insisted that I needed to upgrade.   I would have resisted harder had the camera not been on sale.  Hey, I still miss my Polaroid camera. 

After we succeeded in creating a new cd-rom from my disks Ambriel  decided to bring in her old disks to convert them to cd-rom. She did so quietly. Without any fuss.  She stole my idea.....

I tell you this tale to warn you.  To those of you like me born in early years of Generation X who came of age in the 1900s. Just in time for health science to warn us about AIDS before we headed college.  Thanks guys!
Dusting off your old tech tools may lead to mockery by the those who followed us. 
Gen Xers are half analogue and half digital.  I began my life analog.  I am okay with that.  Now stop laughing at me.  
☝☝☝☝☝ BTW I want this shirt.  
This blog entry speaks to me : 

Bury It: The 3.5" Floppy Disk Is Officially Dead. Wait -- It Wasn't Dead Five Years Ago?