this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2026
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Programmer Humor

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[–] blobii@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 6 hours ago

this was before my age and it's still hilarious

[–] Saganaki@lemmy.zip 190 points 3 days ago (11 children)

It just occurred to me that younger developers may not see the whole joke here…

For those unaware, a magnet would corrupt/destroy the contents on the floppy disk.

[–] mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 12 hours ago

Out of all possibility of people not understandibg this because magnet corrupt the disk, i actually didnt realise it was a magnet and thought it was sticked to a wall with some black sponge on top and was totallt condused what's the joke

[–] 1984@lemmy.today 33 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

First thing i thought of, but yeah, most devs today have never held a disk like that.

Why do i always gets so extreamly nostalgic every time something from the 80s and 90s are posted... I guess everyone is like that, stuff from their childhood remains loved.

I think also because it was a fresh field, nobody knew IT so it was exciting. It was like a small interest, similar to collecting stamps or something.

[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

First thing i thought of, but yeah, most devs today have never held a disk like that.

Bruh, what? Younger millennials (aka 30-40 yo) were born/raised in the 90's. I find your claim hard to believe.

I'm in that group and I still dealt with floppies as a kid despite my family being poor at the time

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[–] ThunderQueen@lemmy.world 21 points 3 days ago

Ive never used a flippy disk but i did get the joke. Its silly and straight forward enough that im tempted to make one for my house lmao

A lot of older data storage was very magnet sensitive, so it wasnt too hard to figure out

[–] axh@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

For the younger generation it might be a philosophical experience, because that is, The Icon of Saving!

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[–] derry@midwest.social 8 points 3 days ago

I was informed everything was stored on the cloud. Why would we need these things called "floppy disks" (which don't like floppy at all)?

/s just in case

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[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 30 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Do I miss the read/write speed? No. Do I miss the capacity? No.

...But I sure DO miss storage media that makes a satisfying "Kachunk" when loaded, and could be forcefully ejected like a spent artillery casing.

I've seen a few projects that stuff a bunch of flash memory into a floppy for crazy storage capacity, which is pretty cool. Maintains that nostalgia and commands much more respect than one of those ridiculously tiny little USBs that's easy to lose! :p

[–] T156@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

…But I sure DO miss storage media that makes a satisfying “Kachunk” when loaded, and could be forcefully ejected like a spent artillery casing.

Older computers just have a nice mechanical ambiance that newer machines don't replicate quite as well.

I don't miss having the time to go make a cup of tea whilst waiting for the computer to turn on, or having the monitor scream the entire time it's on, but I do miss hearing the hard drive spin-up, and all the POST beeps and drive stepper noises when the computer's booting up.

[–] jol@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 2 days ago

I recently got into LPs. It's slowly replacing the default home music source. It's really satisfying to have solid physical media.

Floppy disks were a human size. When we need removable media now, it's either a microSD card, which are so tiny there's no way to label them, and thumb drives, which...USB-A is irritating.

[–] Wilco@lemmy.zip 5 points 3 days ago

I miss those "giant" zip disks that lasted like 5 years as a storage media. They were between 3.5 floppies and burnable CD Roms.

[–] Australis13@fedia.io 50 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I am old enough to understand this joke. Sigh.

[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 19 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Which of your joints pops the loudest?

[–] baguettefish@discuss.tchncs.de 20 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] PhoenixDog@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

My right one in particular sucks.

[–] rizzothesmall@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

My whole body just sounds like Chester Thompson x Phil Collins as I walk around

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[–] username_1@programming.dev 57 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

We ed at y, sky and is a bad of is a. A it above d :(

[–] JetpackJackson@feddit.org 23 points 3 days ago

I thought I was having a stroke lol, didn't even see the other magnets at first

[–] kernelle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 3 days ago

Which is exactly what you'd read out of the floppy disk

[–] dumbass@piefed.social 9 points 3 days ago

Totally dude!

[–] john_t@piefed.ee 33 points 3 days ago (2 children)

"System disk erase, Restore do not"

[–] Rubanski@discuss.tchncs.de 17 points 3 days ago

Don't dead, open inside

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago

Restore, or do not restore. There is no backup

[–] TachyonTele@piefed.social 35 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Is this a magnet you can buy? That would be a cool little gift

[–] CouncilOfFriends@slrpnk.net 41 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Finding the magnet is easy, but finding the save icon could be tricky.

[–] derek@infosec.pub 11 points 3 days ago

Just 3D print a save icon (thingiverse).

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 14 points 3 days ago

I'd give it a 50 chance of still working. Those old ferrite magnets had relatively-weak spread-out fields. It obv would have affected the whole platter, but the drives/software were pretty good at dealing with weak signals. We had disks, we had magnets and some of us were youngish and bored. you had to be a little persistent to even fuck the disk up a little.

Now, you place a running AC box fan's motor right up to the drive, i'll corrupt the f out of the disk, i did that before.

[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 17 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Today, I noticed that my glasses case sticks to my work laptop like a magnet.
I played around with it for a few seconds, then the thought struck me, that it might be my glasses case that's magnetic, and I might be fucking up the electronics or the HDD or something by holding it close to my laptop. Pulled away real quick then. 😅

I did try with my keys later, and well, turns out that it's my work laptop that's magnetic, so I guess, I wasn't fucking anything up after all...

[–] TwilightKiddy@programming.dev 18 points 3 days ago (1 children)

That's probably integrated speakers. Those can have quite powerful magnets. If it has old spinny hard drives, those have magnets, too. Sometimes the lid also has a magnet if there is a hall effect sensor for detecting if it's closed.

Usually it's hard to find a magnet that'd be strong enough to make electronics inside a laptop malfunction without breaking the case open. Your regular fridge magnets are too weak for that kind of application, so are the ones usually found in glasses cases. And if you happen to be an owner of a chonky magnet, you probably already know the thing is dangerous.

[–] bandwidthcrisis@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Some laptops use magnets to help the lid snap closed. I took the back off an old Lenovo and could see the magnets clipped inside.

[–] ProgrammingSocks@pawb.social 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Or magnets for hall effect sensors to tell when the lid is closed.

[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 days ago

Ah yeah, that seems to be it. When I drop my keys in the right place, it goes into suspend. If I lift them back off afterwards, it wakes back up.

Neat. 🙃

[–] matsdis@piefed.social 24 points 3 days ago

I feel old now. I can almost hear the noise of the drive trying to chew on this one.

Anyway, have some on-theme music video: BAD SECTOR by unfa (youtube.com)

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 8 points 3 days ago

weed at y sky & is a bad of is a

[–] bandwidthcrisis@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago

With 5¼" disks, it was more convenient to keep them in a ring binder by punching holes in them.

The other similar story I've heard is someone asking for the backup copy of a disk and being handed a photocopy.

[–] Kaput@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago

Honey i found that disk you were desperatly looking for.

[–] commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 3 days ago

this is art

[–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 5 points 3 days ago (7 children)

What kind of system are you backing up on a single 1.44 mb disk? I guess “restore” just had the restore utilities.

You could boot an old pc from floppy like what later would be called a live CD. Though you were constantly switching disks. Like if you ever played Monkey Island on 5.25” floppies.

[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 9 points 3 days ago (3 children)

I believe it's a practical joke and there isn't actually anything important on that drive.

[–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 6 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Are you akshually’ing my akshually post?

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[–] some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

Not anymore!

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[–] cynar@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

Older PCs couldn't always boot from CD. In those cases, you needed a boot disk. It had just enough OS to get the cd drive working and allow for a full install. They also allowed for basic repair or maintenance tasks e.g. resizing the windows partition.

Veterans kept a couple about at home. Nothing like the catch 22. "I need a boot disk to fix my PC/I need my PC to make a boot disk."

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[–] Ghostie@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I remember as a kid I noticed that there is a certain side of the disk where if you pull the metal part back exposing the disk, it looks like Batman.

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