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Topic: [2014-03-21] Gizmodo-What Bitcoin Would Have Been Like If It Existed in the 90s (Read 1187 times)

legendary
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But the AOL days remind me of well dial up and a 10000000000000 Free CDS at the bank or were they floppies
Still I remember some of this and internet bubble makes me wonder what happens next


AOL first gave out floppies and then towards the end CDs. I still remember taking a flight in the 90's in the US where the airline gave out AOL floppies to the passengers with their drinks. Some of the passengers actually thought they were some kind of weird airline food and one older lady literally was about to take a bite out of one. I explained to her what it was and that it was not edible. She said she had no use for it and gave it to me. Well I ended up collecting the AOL floppies from all the passengers around me. When I got home I formatted them all, to use them as blank floppy disks. Today I still have them and they are perfectly fine and usable after 20 years.

This brings me to my next point. I just completed a test of a floppy that was used as part of my Bitcoin backup strategy. The wallet.dat dated from November 2012 and the floppy in question had been sitting in a bank safety deposit box for the last 9 months. The wallet.dat from the floppy was copied onto the an existing Bitcoin-qt installation on Ubuntu and there was all of my Bitcoin savings wallet perfectly recovered.  

As for floppy failure the most common reason is that people pull them out when data transfer is still in progress. This will lead to data and disk corruption and will also in many cases damage the drive. When properly taken care of they can last for years. I have read data from floppies that were well over 20 years old.

I wonder if we compare technologies which lasts longest
I'm with you on the floppy disks for lifespan I still have a bunch of them and they still look brand new and likely run need to get a Floppy Drive out to test but they do not look old at all hardly look their age.
Remember when they were two dollars a dozen ah inflation Tongue
CD's can be a bit heat sensitive but last fairly well until they get scratched which can happen more often than I want to admit or someone sits on them mumble.
Digital USB sticks work pretty well until they crap out then you lose all your data or you break the power cable but the storage still runs then its just a pain finding a replacement unit to access the hard-drive.

Vinyl - Cassettes -Floppys -CDS -Digital Storage

Were talking about a lot of tech but if Bitcoin did exist in the 90's it would amuse me because people could be seen saying
OMG Bitcoin Hit 1 TH that's GODLY powerful and we could snicker at that 20 years later as were in Petahashes.
It does make me curious how far we can take Moores law and what computer processing power will be in 20 years vs the blockchain and miner difficulty. Possibly beyond Zettahash

But back to AOL disks they brought the internet to the world through spam Smiley
On the other hand we have them to thank for the Eternal September
http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/28/aol-floppy-disk/
“At one point, 50% of the CD’s produced worldwide had an AOL logo on it,” she wrote. Wow.

Still most effective strategy can just be bulk spam  Grin
http://web.archive.org/web/20070820184342/http://www.nomoreaolcds.com/



legendary
Activity: 2282
Merit: 1050
Monero Core Team
I can buy Real Russian Brides with Bitcoin!
But the AOL days remind me of well dial up and a 10000000000000 Free CDS at the bank or were they floppies
Still I remember some of this and internet bubble makes me wonder what happens next


AOL first gave out floppies and then towards the end CDs. I still remember taking a flight in the 90's in the US where the airline gave out AOL floppies to the passengers with their drinks. Some of the passengers actually thought they were some kind of weird airline food and one older lady literally was about to take a bite out of one. I explained to her what it was and that it was not edible. She said she had no use for it and gave it to me. Well I ended up collecting the AOL floppies from all the passengers around me. When I got home I formatted them all, to use them as blank floppy disks. Today I still have them and they are perfectly fine and usable after 20 years.

This brings me to my next point. I just completed a test of a floppy that was used as part of my Bitcoin backup strategy. The wallet.dat dated from November 2012 and the floppy in question had been sitting in a bank safety deposit box for the last 9 months. The wallet.dat from the floppy was copied onto the an existing Bitcoin-qt installation on Ubuntu and there was all of my Bitcoin savings wallet perfectly recovered.  

As for floppy failure the most common reason is that people pull them out when data transfer is still in progress. This will lead to data and disk corruption and will also in many cases damage the drive. When properly taken care of they can last for years. I have read data from floppies that were well over 20 years old.
legendary
Activity: 2884
Merit: 1115
Leading Crypto Sports Betting & Casino Platform
I can buy Real Russian Brides with Bitcoin!
But the AOL days remind me of well dial up and a 10000000000000 Free CDS at the bank or were they floppies
Still I remember some of this and internet bubble makes me wonder what happens next
legendary
Activity: 3038
Merit: 1032
RIP Mommy
My floppies are acting like they got stored on top of a massive electromagnet. So much for that old data.
legendary
Activity: 1008
Merit: 1000
legendary
Activity: 2282
Merit: 1050
Monero Core Team
[2014-03-21] Gizmodo-What Bitcoin Would Have Been Like If It Existed in the 90s

http://gizmodo.com/what-bitcoin-would-have-been-like-if-it-existed-in-the-1548691410

The part about backing up your bitcoins on a floppy disk is actually still very relevant today. I actually use both 3.5in and 5.25in floppies as part of my bitcoin backup strategy. Floppies are in my opinion a much safer option than a certain Bitcoin exchange in Japan when it comes to safely storing Bitcoins. Wink
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