Why 3M stopped making floppy disks in the '90s

Iomega was involved with 3M in Floptical development which is a tech ancestor to the Zip and LS120 formats.

I never understood why, as much as they both eventually succumbed to cheap CD-Rs and later flash drives, the Zip drive was more successful than the SuperDisk.

Did Iomega get some important OEM wins? I seem to recall more retail PCs advertised with Zip drives built in than SuperDisk, although you'd think "you don't need to add another $10 to the BOM for a regular floppy drive" would be an appealing message to large OEMs.

Or maybe Imation, spun off from 3M's massive financial muscle, couldn't compete as aggressively.

I've turned into a bit of a SuperDisk drive hoarder; I've got one in my main desktop-- and a stack of spares I've shucked from external enclosures.

Asbestos, lead, arsenic, lots of people died very horrible deaths due to these "unacceptable" materials.

> I often think that old, high quality goods

Survivor bias plays a huge role as well. No one remembers the dishwasher that broke after 6 months 30 years ago when they were 5. Everyone remembers the one that kept on chugging for 40 years at grandma’s.

> like cars,

OTOH modern cars are much more robust and their engines last much longer with lower maintenance. It’s infuriating when there is an electronic issue and we need to change the computer, but overall integration has its benefits.

> audio gear,

CAD improved a lot. We can now have better speakers much smaller than what we used to have. Much cheaper as well, because through computer design we can make much more complex parts with better properties. It’s the same thing with photography. Modern lenses are insane if you ask someone who’s done it since the 1970s. They have more than 10 optical elements, have insane reach (hand holding a 300mm was very impractical except in the brightest weather).

What we have in our phones is mind boggling if you think about it a little (both optics and speakers).

> plastics, furniture,

A lot of furniture was crap back then as well. It’s interesting because to me the epitome of rubbish furniture that disintegrates over time with horrible discoloured plastic is the 1979s and 1980s. Any random book case you can get now from Ikea is miles better.

> colours that don’t fade

We have loads of synthetic pigments that are much better than what we used to have, without arsenic, uranium, lead, or cadmium.

> Which kind of makes me sad for the future and sad for the past.

That’s normal, and there are a lot of things that are rubbish now. But let’s try to keep a clear view and some critical thinking: a lot of things are also much better.

> You're kind of leaving out the whole "literally poisons the user or gives them cancer" part.

I thought 'horrible' was a suitable word choice for this part.

You might be if the difference in an accurate thermal signal is the difference in a jet engine blade expanding too much to self destruct while in flight :)

> You're kind of leaving out the whole "literally poisons the user or gives them cancer" part.

It was left out because it literally does not happen as you describe it. The state of California compels me to remind you that everything will give you cancer.

The risk is that these devices weren't being recycled properly, tossed in a landfill, and the effects were cumulative. Short of you smashing open the thermostat and drinking the mercury out of the bulb the risk posed to you, the user, was basically zero.

Yet we introduced mercury-containing CFLs as an environmentally-friendly alternative to incandescents.

What do you think is a more likely scenario? Being exposed to a blob of mercury sealed in a glass bulb inside a thermostat that is changed maybe once every 20 years or dropping a mercury containing CFL bulb on the floor?

I'm curious, when you set foot in an automobile are you worried about being poisoned by its lead-acid battery? You shouldn't, it's irrational.

They are surprisingly accurate, actually. It's an effect of the physical properties of the metal, which we can measure quite precisely. I couldn't immediately find an exact figure.

Repeatability is not so great, but mostly because the mechanisms are designed as cheaply as possible. But typically it's within a couple of degrees. It turns out to not be that big of an issue because you want a few degrees of hysteresis in a thermostat.

The electronic ones are, generally, fine.

The in-between generation of wound metal that changes how it bends based on temperature, those were too fiddly and prone to losing calibration.

I don't think a tiny bit of easier working with it is why lead based would be used in aerospace ;)

Shininess? Who cares.

Now I know nothing about which is better in these regards but:

What would you look for in aerospace applications?

I would imagine things like:

Proneness to cold joints. Ease of detecting cold solder joints. Longevity (in general). Longevity under the stresses of aerospace realities. Etc.

Do you have data on that?

Source: I made a fidget spinner. You can't make this stuff up

Just because it works for you doesn't mean it's fine for everyone, and assuming this without research is...brave?

Leaded solder reduces the risk of tin whisker growth which can over time cause shorts - catastrophic in any safety critical equipment.

https://nepp.nasa.gov/WHISKER/background/index.htm

i wonder if you really got leadfree when you can say that. a leaded tin like 60/40 is infinitely nicer to work with than leadfree ones, and I have tried MANY, cheap and expensive leadfree solders, none come even remotely close.

Sure, dont inhale the smoke, dont eat it, wash your hands after handling the solder, you'll be fine. Want to do more for your health? chances are that getting a little more exercise is a hugely more impactful thing to do (and no, I do not know how much you exercise, but many people today are way too sedentary, myself included)

The plutonium from the RTG power cells is much more concerning. How many atoms of plutonium do you have to inhale to get cancer?

The problem isn’t the lead itself, it’s the phenomenon of tin whiskering that can happen with some Pb-free solder alloys where metallic hair-like structures grow from the solder and cause arcs or short circuits.

This is one such example of a failure in space due to tin whiskers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_IV

The way I understand it, leaded solder is not really more harmful to those working with it. Temperatures used in soldering are below the point where vaporization is of concern, and you need good ventilation anyways, no matter the kind of solder, because of flux fumes. Wearing gloves, hand washing, room cleaning and avoid eating where soldering happens may be a good idea, to avoid ingesting lead dust, but I guess these are general rules of cleanliness that would be appropriate for safety-critical equipment regardless of the presence of lead. Plus, elemental lead is one of the least harmful forms of lead.

What I think the problem is and why they have banned lead in consumer electronics is about where all that lead solder ends up. Maybe some is recycled, but I guess most of it ends up in landfills, and a good fraction is just dumped in nature, possibly near drinking water supplies. A few boards won't do much harm, but millions of tons of e-waste will.

That's why I believe lead solder is still used in the aerospace industry, because it is only a small fraction of all the electronics. It is very critical, you really don't want tin whiskers to cause short circuits, a problem with lead-free solder. And if needed it is easier to impose rules regarding waste management in such a highly regulated field than in mass produced consumer goods.