Thursday, July 06, 2023

When Was The Last Time You Saw A Floppy Disc?

 

I was moving things around in my bedroom closet and came across this piece of ancient technology from 1995. 

It's a Canon Star Writer Word Processor. Essentially it's an electric typewriter that prints out letters and stores your work onto a floppy disc. 

The little display flips up so you can see what you're typing.

And as the title of this post implies, here are the floppy discs. I have about a dozen of them because I had this for a few years before I ever got a computer. 

So many floppy discs with all kinds of stuff stored on them. The book I wrote is on one of them and no it's not published and probably never will be because it's awful. lol 

And of course I needed a locking box to store all of my super secret floppy discs. *giggle/snort*

Oh and it still works. I turned it on and inserted a floppy disc and it came right on. I've stored it in its original box so it would stay in good shape so I can still use it if I want.

I liked this because I was able to type out a letter to a friend or family and hit print and it would print it out. And I used to be able to read this tiny print on the display with no problem. But my old lady eyes are having none of that now. Had to put on the reading glasses to read anything on the display now. Ah, to be young again. 

This is where the ribbon for the printer would go but they don't make this ribbon any long so no printing for me. I might have sold this thing years ago but then how would I read what's on my floppy discs? lol  Plus I can't bare to part with it. I spent so many hours pounding away on this thing after buying it. I paid $150 for this back in 1994. And I thought I was the epitome of sophistication. *Oh look at me, I have a typewriter that plugs into the wall!* eye/roll.  

I still have the user manual too just in case my old lady brain forgets how to work this ancient artifact. Did you ever have something like this back before we all had computers and smart phones?