Hello an welcome to the first digest ever on Edwins legendary mistakes. This is for those who have noticed a lot of a fuzz about something regarding Edwin but haven't got the time to wade through tons of posts just to see what kind of mistake he is doing now.
This digest is about Edwins post about a utility called FlashPath, which is an adapter that fits in your floppy drive and it has a slit for some memory cards there were common in digital cameras. He posted this in response to the ongoing "are floppies obsolete" argument that has been going on here since 1998.
Here is Edwins first post:
08/04/2004 The death of the floppy drive has been grossly exaggerated...
Edwin <thorne25@juno.com> (198.63.242.101)
Edwin <thorne25@juno.com> (198.63.242.101)
Basically, he though this was a good thing and that it somehow proved him right. It didn't take long until someone (Alan) noted that this was a reseller, and the items name was "Sandisk Smartmedia Reader Flashpath Floppy Adapter"
Note that the device has "SmartDisk" printed on it, and that is a adapter for SmartMedia cards. This is important to the plot.
08/04/2004 Re: The death of the floppy drive has been grossly exaggerated...
Alan Baker <alangbaker@telus.net> (154.20.2.187)
Alan Baker <alangbaker@telus.net> (154.20.2.187)
Alan didn't find any information about this product on the Sandisk site, soo he concluded that it has been discontinued (and while there haven't been any references for this, there is no reason not to think it hasn't been discontinued).
Edwin claimed that Alan was wrong, since he could order the device from the first link in his post (which would be irrelevant, since you can order many discontinued products that are still in stock at resellers).
Edwin did some more research and posted this:
08/04/2004 Re: The death of the floppy drive has been grossly exaggerated...
Edwin <thorne25@juno.com> (198.63.242.101)
Edwin <thorne25@juno.com> (198.63.242.101)
Where he points to the fact that there is a FlashPath product manufactured by a company named SmartDisk, not Sandisk - hence any discontinuance made by Sandisk would be invalid - the device is clearly made by Smartdisk!
Alan replied with this being a different manufacturer (he was right, read on) and that Sandisk had indeed discontinued the product.
This went back and forth with Edwin claiming that Alan was wrong and vice versa. That is, until Alan posts the Annual report from 2002 from Smartdisk (not Sandisk):
08/05/2004 Re: The death of the floppy drive has been grossly exaggerated...
Alan Baker <alangbaker@telus.net> (154.20.2.187)
Alan Baker <alangbaker@telus.net> (154.20.2.187)
the cost of product sales from the sales of digital connectivity products for 2001 include an inventory write-down of approximately $0.7 million associated with our FlashPath for MultiMedia Card due to our discontinuance of that product.
Ok, that would be the final nail in the coffin for dear Edwin. Both manufacturer have discontinued the product and it isn't being made any more.
Edwin replies with Delkin being the "new" menufacturer by quoting a press release from the year 2000, two years before Smartdisk discontinued the product.
08/06/2004 Re: The death of the floppy drive has been grossly exaggerated...
Edwin <thorne25@juno.com> (198.63.242.101)
Edwin <thorne25@juno.com> (198.63.242.101)
Alan and the gang points out that Delkin is a reseller for SmartDisk products, not a manufacturer of the FlashPath device.
Remmeber that you should note that it read SmartMedia in the beginning? Well, as it turns out, the Sandisk version of the FlashPath does that, and the Smartdisk version reads MMS cards:
All in all, kind of an interesting thread. Edwin shows again that he is ready to make wild claims without knowing better. But what yours truly can't understand is why he so desperatly want to fight for the floppy disk - one would think that he could find something a little less... obsolete to focus his streng... weaknesses on.