I worked in graphic design in the 1990s--and we used a lot of those things. But the article doesn't mention that before the Zip drive, the standard media for transferring large files wasn't floppy drives, but Syquest removable hard drives. (and the Zip itself was a cheaper, smaller version of the Bernoulli drive) The zip drives were cheaper and easier to use, though in the long run, proved not as reliable, so when CDs got cheap enough, Zip was out.