Firefox 2 installer now available on 3.5 inch and 5.25 inch floppies

by Brad Linder Dec 17th 2007

Remember when software used to come on disks, not discs? You know, the old floppies that could hold a whopping 1.2 or even 1.4MB of storage? Well, one Firefox enthusiast over at Spread Firefox decided to see how many disks it would take to hold the Firefox 2.0.0.11. The answer? 5.

But the experiment doesn't stop there. Not only did "JustZisGuy" manage to use WinZip to spread the installer over 5 floppies, he also went and made up some retro-style installation labels.

Of course, this experiment is more art installation than practical demonstration. We can't remember the last time we used a floppy disk drive to save data or install any applications. And even if you've got a PC with a floppy drive, if you plan to use Firefox, that probably means you have an internet connection, which means that you can probably just download the installer yourself.

[via Mozilla Links]

Tags: 3.5-inch, 5.25-inch, firefox, floppy-disk

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

yhancik said 6:37PM on 12-17-2007

Well, not, imagine if your internet connected PC comes with Windows Vista Unbundle, thus without any browser. How the heck do you download Firefox ? :p

Nero said 8:43PM on 12-17-2007

It's called FTP, most modern operating systems have at least a CLI based FTP client. MS Windows is no exception.

Chris said 6:37PM on 12-17-2007

Floppies aren't as dead as you might think... just a few weeks ago I needed one to re-install Windows XP. (It seems that XP's installer requires drivers for SATA mass storage device to be loaded via floppy, as opposed to offering other methods. Way to go, Microsoft!)

RP said 6:39PM on 12-17-2007

Add 1 more floppy for the patch-of-the-week...

RP said 6:39PM on 12-17-2007

This provides a good solution for those who refuse to *touch* IE. Now you don't have to launch IE in order to download and install Firefox -- which is the first thing I do on a new machine -- well, after installing the 81 post-SP2 XP updates (not exagerating).

captainskyhawk said 7:34AM on 12-18-2007

Bah -- where's the punch card version for my ENIAC?

Mark said 7:35AM on 12-18-2007

Hey Chris, that is only true if you have an older motherboard that doesn't support SATA in the chipset. If there's a seperate chip for it than yeah you need drivers, which is not Microsoft's fault at all. SATA did not exist when XP was introduced, how could they possibly have included drivers for it? lol

Back to the story, this is really cool. I'll have to make me a set of these made a nice Windows 2000 label once for a 5.25" floppy disk. Of course it didn't actually fit on there, just for looks. :D

Steve said 7:36AM on 12-18-2007

Just went to the site and noticed he even put it on an 8" floppy disk. LMAO, now all he needs to do is put it on punch tape.

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