# What was the biggest application ever distributed on floppy discs? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 8, 2014, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-biggest-application-ever-distributed-on-floppy-discs/685629 "2014-04-08T12:24:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dervorin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Dervorin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dervorin)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2014, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-biggest-application-ever-distributed-on-floppy-discs/685629/1 "2014-04-08T12:24:04Z")
A lunchtime conversation today turned to the nostalgic, and we were discussing days when installing something involved feeding multiple floppies into a system and praying that the last one didn’t go “KKKHHHRRRRRR - READ ERROR; (A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail?” I know Windows 95 was distributed on [13 floppies](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2005/08/19/453612.aspx), with the “OSR 2.1” release doubling that to 26. I’ve also read somewhere that Windows 98 was made available on 39 floppies, but that might not have been the final release. Office 97 was released on a mind-boggling [55 discs!](http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc767941.aspx) Anyone know of software that was commercially released on floppy disc that involved larger numbers? I assume some larger applications must have been absolutely enormous but were still released in the floppy disc era. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2014, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-biggest-application-ever-distributed-on-floppy-discs/685629/2 "2014-04-08T13:03:18Z")
I was going to list some of the heavyweight apps of the era like dBASE IV and some of the programming languages and suites, but none comes close to 39 or 55. I think the most I ever had to use was a late version of dBASE or maybe the MS programming suite around 1993 - maybe 25? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2014, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-biggest-application-ever-distributed-on-floppy-discs/685629/3 "2014-04-08T13:14:46Z")
[Obamacare released on 35 floppies.](http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-improved-obamacare-program-released-on-35-flop,34294/) 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Dervorin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Dervorin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dervorin)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2014, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-biggest-application-ever-distributed-on-floppy-discs/685629/4 "2014-04-08T13:19:38Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > [Obamacare released on 35 floppies.](http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-improved-obamacare-program-released-on-35-flop,34294/) 😃 Hah! 😃 Full marks (as always) to… The Onion. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2014, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-biggest-application-ever-distributed-on-floppy-discs/685629/5 "2014-04-08T13:25:03Z")
Win 7 @ 2084 floppy disks: [http://www.howtogeek.com/89419/if-windows-7-was-distributed-on-floppy-disks/](http://www.howtogeek.com/89419/if-windows-7-was-distributed-on-floppy-disks/) OK it’s a what if. ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2014, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-biggest-application-ever-distributed-on-floppy-discs/685629/6 "2014-04-08T13:31:04Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Win 7 @ 2084 floppy disks: > > [http://www.howtogeek.com/89419/if-windows-7-was-distributed-on-floppy-disks/](http://www.howtogeek.com/89419/if-windows-7-was-distributed-on-floppy-disks/) > > OK it’s a what if. That looks like a 5 1/4 floppy, though. The link for the calculations doesn’t work for me; what capacity are they assuming? ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2014, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-biggest-application-ever-distributed-on-floppy-discs/685629/7 "2014-04-08T13:37:26Z")
I remember the game “Strike Commander” had a crazy amount of floppies to install. I’m having trouble googling exactly how many, but I found pirate site that says the torrent of the floppy version is 192 Mb “packed”. But I’m sure it wasn’t 134 floppies, so I don’t know how that works out. I _kinda_ remember it being around 40 floppies. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2014, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-biggest-application-ever-distributed-on-floppy-discs/685629/8 "2014-04-08T13:41:03Z")
The biggest I personally ever encountered was Slackware Linux. According to wikipedia, version 2.1 consisted of 73 floppy disks. I would download the disks I needed over a blazing fast 9600 baud modem. I would fire off a download and let it go overnight. In the morning I would find out if it was successful or if it had crapped out at some point. It took a while. I didn’t download everything though, only the disks I needed. You could pay for the entire disk set if you were so inclined. After that folks started moving to CDs. Slackware Linux had the same package sets still organized by disk if you wanted to put them on floppies, but most folks used CDs to actually install it. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2014, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-biggest-application-ever-distributed-on-floppy-discs/685629/9 "2014-04-08T13:42:09Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > I remember the game “Strike Commander” had a crazy amount of floppies to install. I’m having trouble googling exactly how many, but I found pirate site that says the torrent of the floppy version is 192 Mb “packed”. But I’m sure it wasn’t 134 floppies, so I don’t know how that works out. I _kinda_ remember it being around 40 floppies. OK, turns out it was “only” 11 floppies. > **[Reverse Engineering Strike Commander](https://fabiensanglard.net/reverse_engineering_strike_commander/)** > > Reverse Engineering Strike Commander ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2014, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-biggest-application-ever-distributed-on-floppy-discs/685629/10 "2014-04-08T13:43:01Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > I remember the game “Strike Commander” had a crazy amount of floppies to install. I’m having trouble googling exactly how many, but I found pirate site that says the torrent of the floppy version is 192 Mb “packed”. But I’m sure it wasn’t 134 floppies, so I don’t know how that works out. I _kinda_ remember it being around 40 floppies. [This one](http://fabiensanglard.net/reverse_engineering_strike_commander/) seems to have 11 with the speech pack, at least the original incarnation. (I don’t know anything about the history of this game.) ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2014, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-biggest-application-ever-distributed-on-floppy-discs/685629/11 "2014-04-08T13:51:17Z")
The first release of Digital Unix I worked on was V1.2, and that was the last release that had floppies as an option. I think the number was in the 70s or 80s. We included two full sets because you could pretty much ensure that at least one was bad in any set but the odds were good that it wouldn’t be the same one twice. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2014, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-biggest-application-ever-distributed-on-floppy-discs/685629/12 "2014-04-08T13:56:56Z")
The biggest I ever personally installed was Office 4.3 Professional, which IIRC was some 20-30 disks. Fortunately, by then, we’d started creating images and then distributing those via Ghost, so I only ever had to sit through that install once. 🙂 ETA: [This](http://vetusware.com/download/Microsoft%20Office%204.3/?id=5879) suggests that it was 24 disks. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2014, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-biggest-application-ever-distributed-on-floppy-discs/685629/13 "2014-04-08T14:05:44Z")
in the interest of full nerditity comparison the physical and storage capacity of disk size. also it should be with a k to put it in historical context. c didn’t occur until later and for other media. ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2014, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-biggest-application-ever-distributed-on-floppy-discs/685629/14 "2014-04-08T14:07:18Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > [Obamacare released on 35 floppies.](http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-improved-obamacare-program-released-on-35-flop,34294/) 😃 I like how the box says fast 48 floppy disk install while the text calls out 35 floppy disks and the picture shows 36. When will they ever get Obamacare right and consistant? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2014, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-biggest-application-ever-distributed-on-floppy-discs/685629/15 "2014-04-08T14:08:44Z")
> [@Sicks\_Ate](#): > > That looks like a 5 1/4 floppy, though. The link for the calculations doesn’t work for me; what capacity are they assuming? To answer my own question, 1.44 MB. ---
**Author:** ![Celidin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Celidin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celidin)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2014, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-biggest-application-ever-distributed-on-floppy-discs/685629/16 "2014-04-08T14:22:07Z")
I once bought a version of CorelDRAW at a flea market that came on 300 **CDs**. Okay, CD’s 1-299 were stock photos, but still… (it was for those 299 CDs of photos that I bought it for $5) ---
**Author:** ![urban1a](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e47c2d/32.png) [@urban1a](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/urban1a)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-biggest-application-ever-distributed-on-floppy-discs/685629/17 "2014-04-09T01:58:26Z")
I have a copy of OS2 1.0 (or, maybe 1.1, 1988 or 1989) which has 32 3.5" floppies in the box. It wasn’t long after that that they went to CD, first, then DVD. Bob ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-biggest-application-ever-distributed-on-floppy-discs/685629/18 "2014-04-09T04:54:08Z")
The last version of WordPerfect on floppy discs were (IIRC) up to around 30-40 3.5 floppies. Some database programs were a lot bigger than that. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-biggest-application-ever-distributed-on-floppy-discs/685629/19 "2014-04-09T06:03:31Z")
> [@Sicks\_Ate](#): > > To answer my own question, 1.44 MB. 5.25" floppies were typically 1.2 MB. 3.5" were 1.44 MB. However, can you guess how many bytes that is? Note that RAM manufacturers use 1 MB = 1024\*1024 = 1,048,576 bytes, while hard drive manufacturers use 1 MB = 1,000,000 bytes. Neither. Floppies use a “megabyte” of 1024\*1000 = 1,024,000 bytes, so a 1.44 MB floppy contained 1,474,560 bytes. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2014, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-biggest-application-ever-distributed-on-floppy-discs/685629/20 "2014-04-09T06:04:54Z")
I think it had to be the OS/2 Extended Edition development package which came on 5 and 1/4, 1.2 MB floppies. This was released either just before (1988) or after Windows 3.0 . - I think. This was targeted for the 80286. It was mammoth. I actually saw the mountain of disks which were sent but can’t remember precisely (fog of time). Perhaps some other Doper recalls. Sorry. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-biggest-application-ever-distributed-on-floppy-discs/685629.md?page=2)