They were the chosen medium of computer users for years, but it looks like the final nail is going into the coffin of the floppy disk. PC World, Europe's Walmart of computing, has decided that it's not worth selling floppies any more and will just let stocks run out.
According to a statement from Bryan Magrath, the company's commercial director, the technology has just been left behind:
"It is now increasingly standard for computer users to transfer data via the internet or use USB memory sticks, some of which will store the equivalent of 1,000 times the capacity of floppy disk. With that amount of memory available in such a small and convenient device, the floppy disk looks increasingly quaint and simply isn't able to compete."
Over the weekend I came across a box of floppies while delving around in my spare room, and looked at them in wonder. It's been years since I used one, and yet at one point they were so vital. Bye bye floppy: we loved you, once.
