How much of a hit would I take changing instructors this far in?

I haven't seen any. I've seen cheap ones though. (ten dollars or so
for 64 meg).

And floppies aren't free...they cost on the order of 50 cents each or more.

My last set of floppies was free. I got five hundred.

A computer that has a USB controller but does not have USB drivers installed
makes no sense whatsoever.

Meet Windows 98. I'm not completely being fair - I have used my camera
as a thumb drive, and it requires drivers to be downloaded and installed
on Windows 98 machines.

However, it is stupid to generalize that to a claim that
a floppy drive is always (or even often) a useful thing
to have on a brand-new computer.

I'm not. However I've found that obsolete devices come in handy at the
oddest times, and for those times I'm really glad I have them.

I will admit however to not needing a 5 inch drive for a while (though I
did wish I had one some years back)

frankly when most people want to
move an email message from one computer to another, they EMAIL it.

That was Apple's solution some years back. It was dumb then, it's dumb
now. It requires the internet. Floppies don't.

maybe you have some whacked out, 15-years behind the times

Hey!

Jose
--
"There are 3 secrets to the perfect landing. Unfortunately, nobody knows
what they are." - (mike).
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.