The Save button vexes me, or at least the icon for the Save button.

I turned on my computer at work this morning and was once again confronted by the diskette save button that seems ubiquitous on most software. I’m also annoyed by the designation of the C: drive.

Why is the image for the save button a diskette? (no, it’s not a floppy disk, that’s something else, go look it up, I’m too lazy to show you).

There was a good reason the save button was a diskette. The diskette was, for a short period of time, the way we saved files. It could hold up to 1.44 MB of data and every computer in the world had a B: drive which could read from the diskette. Yes, the B: drive. The reason it was the B: drive was because the aforementioned floppy disk was the A: drive. The internal drive eventually came along and was called the C: drive.

You may have noticed that there are no drives for floppy disks or diskettes anymore. That we now save files either on the network, the web, or a removable USB drive. The diskette no longer has a place in the world. There is no A: or B: drive on your computer but there is certainly a strange little icon we use for saving things. I’ve often heard it referenced as “The little TV set button”.

People in this world have a fondness for something called nostalgia. We remember past events with what are called rose-colored glasses. This is something we see every day in the world and it’s not necessarily a good thing.

Wikipedia tells us: The term nostalgia describes a sentimentality for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.

I’m of the opinion that a over-reliance on nostalgia can be a negative influence on life. When we base our behavior on misconceptions about the past it is bound to make our lives worse.

As an example; there were good things about simpler times in the 19th century but there were also awful things as well. Women had few if any rights. Racism and anti-Semitism were the norms not the exceptions. If we yearn for a simpler time without understanding that we also give away the ability to travel long distances easily, eat oranges outside warm regions, have cold drinks, and many of the other things modern society offers us, we do a disservice to ourselves.

My point in all this? I want to end the Save button icon as a diskette. It makes no sense to the modern users and thus can cause confusion. It’s bad in general. Death to the Diskette!

P.S. Can someone please make the C: drive the A: drive and end that madness?

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Spear of the Hunt
Next Release: The Broken Throne