What do you think would be the best Save Icon instead of the old Floppy?

sgunhouse

@Pathduck Kind of large for an icon.

I like the old arrow into a folder for Save, and of course arrow out of a folder for Open.

jahir2181

This post is deleted!

Catweazle

@jahir2181, nice page, but nothing to do with the threat. All images there tagged with #z, Zara, zebra, zombie...and so on. Better search on one of the clipart galleries out there (svg, png...)

Thot

„The floppy disk icon is a - language, not a metaphor. It doesn't matter that we stop writing files to 1.44 MB 3.5-inch hard drives. It doesn't matter that many users don't even know what a floppy disk is. Importantly, users associate the icon with saving.“

https://complexelepheonix.com/symbol-speichern-ist-das-diskettensymbol-tot/#:~:text=Das Diskettensymbol ist,dem Speichern verknüpfen.

And today, today you would probably have to use an SSD icon.

https://miisa-k.blogspot.com/2021/04/ssd-icon-931207-ssd-icon-mac-os-x.html

Catweazle

@Thot, with this metaphor argument, it could be used with the same logic to use a punched card, a magnetic tape, a 5 3/4 disk or a pendrive.
All the icons used are metaphorical, but all of them, apart from the one mentioned, are much more generic and intuitive than this Floppy, which in the future is not even understandable for the youngest as a storage medium..

Thot

@Catweazle said in What do you think would be the best Save Icon instead of the old Floppy?:

which in the future is not even understandable for the youngest as a storage medium..

Maybe, but as a youngest, which I’m by far not anymore, I think it’s important to know also something about Computer History. Said: Where does it all comes from? Not everybody is willing to do this, but computers didn't come into being out of nowhere.

But the younger ones should already know an SSD icon for saving a file, for instance?

Catweazle

@Thot, we are not the only ones here who discuss this topic, there are similar discussions on many other networks.
For us who still know what a floppy is, it is intuitive to associate the save with using it as a symbol, but this can change quickly in the future.
I am from the generation that still knew punched tapes and punched cards as a storage medium, but young people today would surely not associate an icon of a punched card to save a file, the same thing will happen with the floppy sooner or later.

etc.

Thot

@Catweazle said in What do you think would be the best Save Icon instead of the old Floppy?:

young people today would surely not associate an icon of a punched card to save a file, the same thing will happen with the floppy sooner or later.

True, so why not ask them themselves? I think we can’t decide this for them. And time will tell, if the icon will change in fifty or hundred years from now on, or not.

These are nice: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fvectorified.com%2Fimages%2Fnew-save-icon-27.png&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=a8c874d99b5e2287df526627f2ea251e789b71c211a65dba0d4f5754e8d7e886&ipo=images

Hadden89

#SaveTheFloppyIcon

#SaveTheSettingsGear-WrenchIcon

far4

I am in favor of cherishing history and teaching in schools not only the history of the world, but also the history of scientific and technological progress.
The floppy disk is a symbol. Just like a vinyl record and an audio cassette. Electron lamps and laser disks. Maybe in 100 years people will forget all these wonderful things. But not today.

When I was a kid, one of my favorite writers was Isaac Asimov. And these are not only positronic brains, but also mechanical calculators, many kilometers of electric relays and lamps, robots that read romance books using photoelectric relays. Good books, read for the first time as a child, make a person a better person. As a rule! Asimov, Sheckley, Bradbury, Żelazny, Brunner, Lem, Varley. Many dozens more names from my childhood.

A floppy disk is as much a cultural treasure as books. As recognizable as names, book titles, neologisms, plot details, quotations that trigger a flood of memories and associations, so too should graphic symbols be recognizable.

Pathduck

Ah yes those were great times...
Don't copy that floppy!

alt text

far4

@Pathduck

...of saving the coherence of times and meanings.

DoctorG

@far4 No, the saviour of us is Saint Backup from Church of The Daily Tasks.

far4

@DoctorG
These are different levels of salvation. Like RAID-1 and terminal skills in the GUI era.

By the way, even magnetic tape drives are still in use and are considered reliable. And the Japanese are very slow to give up floppy disks. And there were different floppy disks: Sony's minidisk looks very similar to a floppy disk.

So that's another question: how much have we forgotten about floppy disks? Maybe it's exaggerated like with vinyl records.

Catweazle

Someone remember which was the save icon in the pre-floppy era?
Well, floppies are older than graphic interface, but the floppies than are not those which we know as icon, but those big cardboard thingies, 8" and 5 1/4" not these last ones from the known icon.
alt text

That means, going with an historic symbol for save, more correct maybe this icon

alt text

DoctorG

@Catweazle Oh yes, the 8” floppy on Shugart drives with my DIY Eurocardbus Z80 PC in a 19” rack and CP/M OS – i remember around 1980. The next floppy was 3½” (costed 800 DM ).
1984 or so i bought a IBM compatible PC hardware when i was working as programmer for a tecnical engineer office.