OT - Video Card Question(s)

Peter Duniho wrote:
"Martin Hotze" wrote in message
The USB flash drives all act as a
standard disk controller, and the standard Windows USB drivers recognize
it
as such.

no sir.

Yes sir.

each USB stick needs is own set of drivers (unless you find some with the
sam chipset). But I agree, mostly these drivers come with a small cd-rom.

Baloney. The USB drives have the same disk controller interface found on a
variety of other USB-attached storage devices, and they all comply with the
standard supported in Windows. You do not need to go around installing
drivers specific to your USB flash drive just to get your flash drive to
work.

This is, in fact, one of the reasons that USB flash drives have become so
ubiquitous. Modern PCs already have all the software required in order to
display them as standard file storage devices. You just plug them in and
they work.

I finished a lesson Tuesday afternoon an noticed a Gulfstream on the
ramp, getting fuel and *kinda* getting ready to go. The copilot was
layin on the ground under the nose trying to reconnect something to
do with the gear (and yes, he's an A&P as well as a pilot). So I went
sightseeing and started chatting with the pilot. He was bored out of
his mind updating the FMS. A Rockwell Collins FMS. Jepp sends out a
CD with the updates but they can't use it. But, having the subscription,
they go on the Jepp website and download 5 floppy disks, then sped
45 min. or so doing the updates.

According to the pilot, no way to upgrade the FMS to use the CD.
What he really wants is the ability to use a USB drive with the
database for the upgrade! He can't even connect his laptop to the
system to do the upgrade from the CD.

There really are situations where us spam cans have an easier time
doing software upgrades to our equipment.

On Tue, 21 Nov 2006 15:53:34 -0800, Peter Duniho wrote:

I haven't bought a computer with a floppy drive in five years, and probably
haven't even used a floppy drive in three. A floppy drive is just a dust
collector these days.

So how do you update a BIOS?

Pete

#m
--
Enemy Combatant http://itsnotallbad.com/

"Martin Hotze" wrote in message
...
I haven't bought a computer with a floppy drive in five years, and
probably
haven't even used a floppy drive in three. A floppy drive is just a dust
collector these days.

So how do you update a BIOS?

You get a motherboard that doesn't require a floppy to do so. In some
cases, this involves booting from a CD, in other cases, the motherboard has
a BIOS mechanism that works from within Windows (and sometimes even other
operating systems).

What are you doing over there? Is all your computer hardware stuck in the
20th century? All of your comments seem to ignore all of the progress that
hardware manufacturers have made in the last ten years. It's like you've
never seen a PC that could be operated without a floppy drive before. They
exist, and these days are in the majority.

Pete

On Tue, 21 Nov 2006 15:53:34 -0800, "Peter Duniho"
wrote:
I haven't bought a computer with a floppy drive in five years, and probably
haven't even used a floppy drive in three. A floppy drive is just a dust
collector these days.

I still keep an old laptop with a floppy drive in the closet and it is
configured such that I can quickly add it to the network if there is
something on a floppy that I have to copy to one of my machines... I
also have a couple of 3.5" and 5.25" floppy drives that I can
temporarily add to a machine if necessary... Instead of one of the
memory stick USB drives, I use a CompactFlash card reader and use the
CF card that I retired from my digital camera after I replaced it with
a 2G card... About the only time I use a floppy these days is if I'm
upgrading the BIOS on an older machine and the procedure requires me
to boot from floppy... It don't need to floppy often, but I'm not
willing to completely give them up yet...

On Tue, 28 Nov 2006 11:47:13 GMT, Grumman-581
wrote:

I still keep an old laptop with a floppy drive in the closet and it is
configured such that I can quickly add it to the network if there is
something on a floppy that I have to copy to one of my machines... I
also have a couple of 3.5" and 5.25" floppy drives that I can
temporarily add to a machine if necessary... Instead of one of the
memory stick USB drives, I use a CompactFlash card reader and use the
CF card that I retired from my digital camera after I replaced it with
a 2G card... About the only time I use a floppy these days is if I'm
upgrading the BIOS on an older machine and the procedure requires me
to boot from floppy... It don't need to floppy often, but I'm not
willing to completely give them up yet...

I picked up an external USB floppy drive and hook it up to the
machine I want to copy the files to. I think they sell for like $30
now.

...plus the usual floppy drive
Why?

Despite their reported obsolescence, they are still exceedingly useful
for tranfer of small files from machine to machine, especially those
without USB connections and drivers for whatever brand of thumb somebody
has.

The cost? $13 bucks. No sense in eliminating it, for that!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
oups.com...
The cost? $13 bucks. No sense in eliminating it, for that!

It costs more than $13 (ignoring for the moment that $13 is pretty steep for
a floppy). That's just the cost of the part. There's an incremental cost
in labor to install it, plus additional support costs related to the fact
that it's just one more component that can fail.

And when I wrote that a floppy drive is a "dust collector", I wasn't just
using that as a figure of speech. The floppy drive is literally a place
where dust will collect. Over time, this will impair the functionality of
the drive, and it also provides a route for dust to enter the PC case. Not
that most people have cases that otherwise eliminate dust, but the more dust
going in, the more often the electronics (and especially the heat-sinks and
dissipaters) need to be cleaned off.

There are some people who know for a fact that they will use a floppy drive.
For everyone else, today there is no good reason to have one.

Pete

There are some people who know for a fact that they will use a floppy drive.
For everyone else, today there is no good reason to have one.

Agreed. In fact, I tried to remember the last time I used a floppy,
and I think it was earlier this year when my 13 year old daughter
needed to take a Powerpoint presentation to school. For some reason
only a floppy would do -- no CDs allowed -- so I dredged one up out of
our lockbox, from back in the days when we kept our home inventory on
floppies.

Musta been from the '80s...

;-)

Still, for $13, I included it, simply because you never know when you
might need it. If computers continue to progress the way they have, my
new "God System" will end up in my daughter's dorm room in five years,
as a "junk" machine.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

In article . com,
"Jay Honeck" wrote:

Agreed. In fact, I tried to remember the last time I used a floppy,
and I think it was earlier this year when my 13 year old daughter
needed to take a Powerpoint presentation to school. For some reason
only a floppy would do -- no CDs allowed -- so I dredged one up out of
our lockbox, from back in the days when we kept our home inventory on
floppies.

My kids each have a USB flash drive for transporting files between home
and school.

("Jay Honeck" wrote)
If computers continue to progress the way they have, my new "God System"
will end up in my daughter's dorm room in five years,
as a "junk" machine.


Ain't gonna happen.

Daddy's little girl is getting a new (2011 model year) machine, to help her
get the most out of that $57,000/year education you'll be footing the bill
for.

At $570, her NEW computer system will be 1% of her first year college
expenses.


Montblack