Lost Technology

Writing this Fall Technical Meeting paper has me digging through old files for references I am certain are in there some where. Of course I am finding many things I had forgotten about and this is not helping me get things done in a timely manner. Amongst the treasures unearthed was a box of 3.5 inch floppy disks and a few of the earlier 5.25 inch versions as well. Some of my younger readers may not have ever seen or used floppy disks but there was a time when they were the cutting edge of computer technology. For engineers of a certain age, our first “network” was the “sneaker network,” as in lace up your shoes and run this disk over to NC programming or accounting. Anyway, I have several boxes of 3.5 inch floppy disks I can’t bring myself to discard. The programs that used them are around somewhere and, who knows, if the zombie apocalypse really happens I may be the only guy left who can still boot up a 2-D CAD program. My secret weapon? A portable floppy disk drive! And just to prove it still works I provide today’s special diversion: a Gear Technology word search. These came in very handy back in the day while waiting for the sneaker network to respond. We’ll publish the solution in a later posting. Gear Word Search