Debating whether we should still teach floppy drive repair in 2025

Had a convo with a guy at a repair shop in Austin last week who said knowing how to fix floppy drives is totally useless now, but I think it taught me a lot about troubleshooting logic that applies to modern hardware. He argued that time would be better spent learning SSD firmware issues, which I get, but there's something about tracing signal paths on those old drives that builds a foundation. What do you all think - is it worth keeping vintage repair skills in the curriculum or are they a waste of time?

2 comments

2 Comments

nora5351mo ago

I had a buddy who runs a mom and pop computer shop in New Mexico, he kept a busted floppy drive on his bench for years just because it helped him teach new hires how voltage dividers work in real time. One kid spent a whole afternoon tracing a bad cap on that thing and later fixed a weird power issue in a modern laptop power supply because he remembered how the circuit behaved. It's not about the floppy drive itself, it's about learning to look at the board and think, you know?

umab351mo ago

That floppy drive wasn't doing anything special by itself. It just gave people something real to poke at and figure out. Too many people get stuck on memorizing specs and charts instead of actually looking at a board and seeing what's happening. Old broken gear is great for that because there's no pressure if you mess it up. Circuit behavior is circuit behavior whether it's a 1980s floppy or a new laptop.