Ed Cryer wrote:

I was struck by what you say about floppy drives. I haven't come across
one of them for years and years. And I can't think of a single use I'd
have for one beyond copying data from old floppies prior to throwing
those in the bin.
It's a similar situation with, say, musicassettes.

Some folks still have VCRs and Betamaxes, Laserdisc player, cassette and
8-track players, and vinyl record players so they can continue
supporting media old formats. Just because you decided to purge all the
old hardware platforms doesn't mean everyone did. Audiobooks from the
library still come as cassettes. There is still that old media floating
around, just not in your home.

Out of my 3 cars, one is 24 years old. Still works. There other 2 are
12 and 15 years old. They still work, too. Lots of users are still
using Windows XP and even Windows 98 or MS/IBM-DOS.

You don't want to support old formats. I build my own computers. If,
as I said, the mobo has a floppy header, geez, yeah, I'm in the poor
house for buying a $8 floppy drive. Of course, and a builder, you never
have salvaged parts from old setups, uh huh. If you are that tight in
your build's budget (and no salvaged parts) then you also have the
cheapest and crappiest PSU in it.

Even USB-attached floppy drives are available because there are still
folks that have data on that media, especially for laptops where floppy
drives were often omitted even back when diskettes were still in demand.
Between me and a buddy, we probably enough old gear to support his
customers with old computers. Not everyone throws away working
hardware. I think my oldest PC is a Pentium 100 MMX but I have parts
from even older PCs.

So in less than a decade from now, what are you going to do with all
those music CDs and movie DVDs when those players cease availability in
new builds? Why include "superfluous" optical disc devices in a new
build by then even external mSATA ports and SSD drives are passe? Yeah,
burn your bridges and hope you don't have to come back.

You do know there are groups that relish in ancient hardware, right?
That's more about naustalgia. I'm not that much enamored of vintage
hardware but I have some. With diskette sales still ongoing, I'm not
the only one with devices to use them. I don't have anything on
diskettes for myself but that doesn't mean I will waste a mobo header.
Even if I don't eat a whole pizza for just myself, I save it and eat it
cold for breakfast the next day. Waste not, want not, as long as you
have the space. When I get the next new[er] car, that 22-year old one
will have to go. No space for 4 cars.