[majewsky]

In 2009, I was at university, majoring in physics. The curriculum for experimental physics contained a series of lab courses. One of these used an old-but-reliable specialized measuring device for which only a DOS driver was available. (The DOS box next to it probably came with the device.) It was still working flawlessly, but of course, DOS can only write to floppy disks.

This wasn't a problem before because the result data could just be copied to a USB drive using one of the several workstations in the experimental physics department. However, when I did the lab course, the dept had been outfitted with all-new workstations just a few days prior. And of course the new workstations did not have floppy disk drives anymore. It took the instructor a while to locate a PC that still had one.

I wonder if that DOS box is still in use.

[CommieBobDole]

>but of course, DOS can only write to floppy disks

DOS can write to hard drives just fine. Maybe not some early versions, but certainly all of the versions I used.

[majewsky]

Well yeah, but I was talking about getting data off the system onto my own notebook (for the purpose of writing the lab course report). A 90s-era hard drive would be even more impractical for this purpose than a floppy disk.