美国国家公共电台 NPR--Some industries still use floppy disks. This is one of the only places to buy them

Some industries still use floppy¹ disks. This is one of the only places to buy them

Transcript²

An online merchant who runs one of the few remaining websites where you can buy floppy disks says they're still used in the medical and airline industries.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

When I was little, it was rare for people to have computers in their homes. Then my friend's dad got one which stored data on what looked to me like an audio cassette. Then somebody got a computer that used a thing called a floppy disk. Those disks were everywhere in the 1990s and then became rare. The industry moved on to CDs and flash drives and finally just downloading data instead of physically³ passing it around. That's where Tom Persky comes in.

TOM PERSKY: This is a technology that is extremely stable, extremely well-understood, not really hackable, and performs an unbelievably great job for very small bits of data.

A MART?NEZ, HOST:

Persky is the president of floppydisk.com, one of the few places on the internet where you can still buy floppy disks.

PERSKY: The best day for me is when somebody calls me up and says, hey, we're cleaning out our warehouse⁴. And back in the corner, we found a pallet of floppy disks, and we're about to take them to the dump. Will you take them off our hands?

INSKEEP: He will. And he'll resell them to computer hobbyists, artists, and even the airline industry.

PERSKY: If you made an airplane 20 years ago and you wanted to get the information in and out of the avionics, you would use the up-to-date, high-tech⁵ system available to you, which 20 years ago was a floppy disk.

MART?NEZ: As recently as 2020, British Airways⁶ still had some Boeing 747s that used floppy disks to update their navigation data.

PERSKY: For people who depend on older medical technology or older aviation technology or older industrial manufacturing technology, they're going to continue to use it for as long as it continues to serve their purposes.

MART?NEZ: Even people who never use a floppy disk see an image of one. A disk shows up as the save icon⁷ in many computer apps most of us use every day.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DON'T COPY THAT FLOPPY")

ME HART: (Rapping) We protect it by law. We value so highly what the mind's eye saw. Don't copy, don't copy that floppy.

1 floppy   

adj.松软的，衰弱的

参考例句：

• She was wearing a big floppy hat.她戴了顶松软的大帽子。
• Can you copy those files onto this floppy disk?你能把那些文件复制到这张软盘上吗？

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。

4 warehouse   

n.仓库；vt.存入仓库

参考例句：

• We freighted the goods to the warehouse by truck.我们用卡车把货物运到仓库。
• The manager wants to clear off the old stocks in the warehouse.经理想把仓库里积压的存货处理掉。

5 high-tech   

adj.高科技的

参考例句：

• The economy is in the upswing which makes high-tech services in more demand too.经济在蓬勃发展，这就使对高科技服务的需求量也在加大。
• The quest of a cure for disease with high-tech has never ceased. 人们希望运用高科技治疗疾病的追求从未停止过。

6 AIRWAYS   

航空公司

参考例句：

• The giant jets that increasingly dominate the world's airways. 越来越称雄于世界航线的巨型喷气机。
• At one point the company bought from Nippon Airways a 727 jet. 有一次公司从日本航空公司买了一架727型喷气机。

7 icon   

n.偶像，崇拜的对象，画像

参考例句：

• They found an icon in the monastery.他们在修道院中发现了一个圣像。
• Click on this icon to align or justify text.点击这个图标使文本排齐。