Japan scrapped every regulation requiring the use of floppy disks for administrative purposes this week, catching up with the times 13 years after the country’s producers manufactured their last units.
The floppy disk, invented in the 1970s, was once a ubiquitous part of computing. Other forms of memory like flash drives and internet cloud storage have since taken over. In the 1990s, along with the cassette tape, it was inching toward the dustbin of outdated tech.
But not in Japan. While renowned for its consumer electronics giants, robots and some of the world’s fastest broadband networks, the country has also been wedded to floppy disks and other old technologies like fax machines and cash.