Flip That Floppy!

Have lots of floppy disks (or diskettes if you prefer) sitting around from the 90s? Are they filled with useless drivers for computers you long since gotten rid of?

If you answered yes to either one, then you have all the materials that you need to start making floppy [anything you want], as long as you already have a gluegun and some glue.

This Instructable is not so much a how-to guide as it is some basic ideas to show you what you can do ( and some of the basics of working with floppys of the 3.5" species)

I hope this fuels your imagination, and shows you what you can do with what seems like trash.

If you don't want to make anything out of any floppy that is special, use another - I found gems like Day of the Tenticle, Win 3.11, and MS Flightsim 5.

Step 1 Desk Organizer

These retail for quite a bit of money, but this is free!

Mine has 4 compartments, one with 2 'drawers', one for a bigger object. the other 2 are for pens/tools.

You can arrange yours anyway you want, but 2 floppys should be as deep as it goes, any deeper, and it'd be too big for your desk. These are quite free-form, like any of these projects. It all depends on what you plan on using it for.

Comments

[marioguy1121]

thanks they were really helpful

[account3r2]

My cd drive has no burner so i am stuck with using floppies... My main cpu has a floppy drive, but it doesnt even work.

[ilpug]

 the actual floppy disks inside the case can be hooked to a motor to spin at high rpm. this can actually be converted into an extremely effective razor sharp saw for matboard or cardboard.

[Remington900]

hey, did you post it on how to make it, if so, please post the "key word".

[the rural independent]

OOOOOOOO....I wonder if this can be used to cut foamboard insulation without it spewing out all those nasty chunks of foam all over the place.  I need to cut some for a solar cooker and may try this - thanks for posting!

www.theruralindependent.com/forum/index.php

[Remington900]

floppies are not useless pieces of plastic, im thirty years of age, I work with cars and when we had floppies, I had a lot of plans for a new car, then there was a black out, I "thought" I lost all the plans, turned out, I had auto save, all my documents were saved, thanks to that special floppy.
now wasn't that a nice story?

[porcupinemamma]

Most excellent!

[bowmaster]

Can you still buy floppys? I want to make some of this stuff!

[yoshhash]

 For god's sake do not buy any new floppies.  You can get them for free by the thousands by posting on freecycle or kijiji or craiglist.

[Chewy1993]

I saw some in a Staples the other day. I didn't look to see the price, but I was quite surprised they still have them in retail. I'm glad you are interested, Have fun!

[Chard]

i just use mine as coasters!

[Silver Buttons]

I got rid of a bunch of floppies several months ago! Threw away the used ones and took the unused ones to a thrift store. If only I'd known I could make all this cool stuff with them!

This reminds me, I once went through a bunch of my old stuff and came across a REALLY old AOL floppy disk with, I think, 20 free hours of AOL service! This was before CDs came out, and they were sending these things in the mail to everyone in the known universe, or so it seemed. Pity I threw it away. I don't even know why I had hung onto it for so long.

[takod]

I kinda miss the days of floppy discs.

[Kryptonite]

Nice, reusing old stuff like that is always good to see.

[Gonazar]

This should be a slide show instead. This completely lacks information on how to MAKE these items. The organizer is nice an instructable on how to make it would be helpful, but at least put up more photos. I can't see the drawers at all.

[zack247]

interesting idea with a boat... they seem pretty airtight those little chunks of useless plastic. they make great shurikens too, no cutting required!