Yes and this is the attitude I worry about:
Trying to insult people because they can't afford hardware.
+5 (but I can only do one thanks
).
But it goes much deeper than that: often it's not merely about affording but availability as well.
"Back in the days" (uh oh: grandpa Shell talking
), before the adoptation of the Internet as we know it today I was a vivid and passionate FidoNet user (and more switch-based networks). Heck, I eventually grew out to become the host of my own Zone 2 based network. Within FidoNet context that's pretty big.
That period was totally
awesome. I could sent a
private message from the Netherlands to another FidoNet user in the US and they would get it within a few days. How cool was that?! All operated by phone lines mind you!
This is around 1990 we're talking about and I still have backups of the BBS ("Concord") and 'front end' ("Portal of Power") software I used back then. And don't forget about my favorite tosser FMail. Heck, I also still have timEd, which was the message editor I used back then.
Freely available and free to use for everyone, but if you registered (which I did) you gained the right to edit your signature. Which, being the fanboy I was, I still kept referring back to my favorite software.
Sorry for a little rant but this post honestly triggers memories. Some very good ones
But.. back ontopic: So around 2010 I learned that parts of Southern Russia, Northern Asia and even in Africa people still relied on these concepts. Back in 2010 when "everyone" had a dual core and smart phone, right?
This rabbit hole is much deeper than some are willing to accept.
Seriously... Nothing wrong with looking at the world from your own perspective, but could we at least TRY to look beyond our own comfort zone when we're venting opinions which would affect many people than those you think you know?
My servers don't have a floppy disk. My deprecated one down in my storage compartment has both a 5.25" and a 3.5" disk drive, and I even have my Commodore 64 and my (rather massive) 5.25" disk collection as well (notches for the win: using 2 sides of one disk!).
Yet despite that I am still in full support of FreeBSD keeping support for floppies into their system, even though it's one of the first things I disable in
src.conf. Sure: I can well imagine that this will be eventually removed, maybe in 2020? But the fact is: even though most (modern) PC's don't have this concept anymore (anyone remember ZIP drives? 100Mb storage, whoo!) it is still supported today.
Because even though WE don't use floppies anymore doesn't mean that no one does.