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2020 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI)

Data-Saving Office System

That Can Be Stored on a

Miki Sunakawa Takayuki Fujimoto Graduate School of Sciences and Arts Graduate School of Information Sciences and Arts Toyo University Toyo University Tokyo, Japan Tokyo, Japan [email protected] [email protected]

Abstract—Since the 1980s, when began to spread in II. PURPOSE ordinary households, various recording for storing have appeared. Initially, the data capacity was less than 1MB. In In this research, we develop a system necessary and recent years, capacity has been rapidly increasing, so sufficient for today's office work with a small amount of data the data capacity is not concerned as much as before. In this that can be stored on a 1.44M floppy disk. Setting the limitation research, we examine the possibility of a sufficiently practical as the office system that can be stored on a floppy disk, does not system by carefully selecting the necessary functions for general just make it impossible to have various functions, rather, use with the method of not- over-decorating. Production applies a functionality can be enhanced because the functions need to be 3.5-inch floppy disk to limit the amount of data. By carefully carefully selected. selecting necessary functions, we believe that the visibility and usability will be improved, and the functionality will be enhanced. Applications and environments required for office work do not necessarily need decorations. There are many cases in which Keywords—IT, Recording media, Data-saving, Floppy disk excessively decorated visuals in recent years have a negative effect to business. We consider the feasibility of a practical Short , CSCI-ISOT system sufficiently by the method of carefully selecting necessary functions for the general use without over-decorations. I. INTRODUCTION The feasibility will be examined even if the system does not With the development of and smartphone have a huge amount of data like recent software and applications. applications, various recording media have appeared and evolved. In particular, the storage capacity is rapidly increasing. III. FLOPPY DISK Data worth for one computer storage capacity can be recorded Manufacturing of floppy disks was stopped around 2011. in a small USB memory or . Of course, the prices Therefore, the number of young people who do not know floppy are getting lower, and many of them have various functions that disks is increasing. There were three types of magnetic disks; 8- are not just for memorizing. The evolution of recording media inch, 5.25-inch, and 3.5-inch, housed in a thin card-shaped case. has made our lives more convenient and brought efficiency. On The most popular one is type 3.5-inch with a storage capacity of the other hand, beyond the evolution, the data capacity for files 1.44 MB. This capacity cannot store the Word or PowerPoint and other data generated by computers is increasing. files with many decorations. Today's USB memory and flash In the 1980s, when computers began to popularize in memory have TB-sized storage capacity, and many of them are ordinary households, most recording media could store only a smaller than floppy disks. As a result, the social mission of small amount of data of less than 1 MB. Therefore, creators floppy disks has disappeared, except when people have to use engaged in content production by trial and error considering how some older systems unavoidably. to express while saving the amount of data. However, in recent years, large-capacity recording media have become available at low cost. Content is created without being conscious of data capacity as before. On the other hand, despite of the use at the individual level, recording media often contains many unnecessary functions and decorations with increasing the data capacity. The bloated data capacity is meaningless in many cases, and in some cases, it can be a obstacle to a user’s deliberate expressiveness.

978-1-7281-7624-6/20/$31.00 ©2020 IEEE 1137 DOI 10.1109/CSCI51800.2020.00212 understand visually while having practical functions. The applied floppy disk is a type 3.5-inch with data capacity of 1.44MB, which was the most popular. Along with that, we design all office applications to be stored in 1.44MB. First, we work on the three stages of developments as follows. * (calculation) *Text editor ( creation) *Paint software (design). A. Calculator Regarding the daily use of computers, one of the functions that are often used is the calculator. The four arithmetic Fig. 1. Floppy disk (8-inch, 5.25-inch, and 3.5-inch) operations are the most frequently used operations. In addition, the operations involving decimal s, which is often used in tax The most popular 3.5-inch floppy disk has a data capacity of rate calculations, is also important. Therefore, the calculator in 1.44MB. This capacity is equivalent to about 1.44 million this system specializes in the functions of four arithmetic single- characters for text data. In other words, it is possible operations and decimal points as a simple and highly functional to store the amount of data that deserves for several . At combination. least, for document management, floppy disks are still useful today in respect of the capacity. However, they are not used The data size of this application is 0.3MB. anymore because the text files created by word processing software or PDF are not purely character data and the files are decorated and processed in various ways. That is also the case for applications such as games. Nintendo (NES)'s ‘Super Mario Brothers’, the world's best- selling , was only 40KB. Similarly, as to other well- known video games, ‘Dragon Quest’ was 64KB. Even the greatly expanded ‘Dragon Quest 4’ was 512KB, all of which can be stored on a floppy disk. For the limited recording media at that time, creators tried compressing the data by various means without degrading the expressive quality. It can be said that the creativity of the content creators at that time was demonstrated in such a situation. Fig. 3. Screen of existing calculator application

Fig. 2. Family Computer Disk System and Disc Card Fig. 4. Screen of prototype calculator software IV. OFFICE SYSTEM STORED IN FLOPPY DISK In this research, we design a system with the use of a floppy B. Text editor disk based on the concept of expressing with the data capacity In general computer use, the most frequently used software as small as possible. This research aims to ‘data saving in is probably word processing software. It is no exaggeration to content production’ that is discounted than before with the say that document creation is a core function of computers. device development and the advent of large-capacity recording While word processing software in recent years has rich media. It does not mean simply limiting functionality to reduce functionality, the size of document files is extremely large. This data capacity. We make the system simple and easy-to- is because the layout and artwork data are incorporated in the

1138 invisible part other than the text data. If you decorate it, the amount of data will increase further. However, in document creation, extra decoration and layout often reduce work efficiency. Rather, eventually simple looks and features are more convenient in many cases. Therefore, regarding this system, we worked on the implementation of a text editor that unnecessary decorations are intentionally eliminated. The functions of this software limitedly allow users to enter/delete characters and save the completed texts. However, the layout and appearance are maintained so that they do not disturb the document creation work. The data size of this application is 0.3MB.

Fig. 7. Screen of existing paint application

Fig. 5. Screen of existing document creation application

Fig. 8. Screen of prototype paint software

V. FUTURE WORK In this research, we created the office system that can be stored on a floppy disk with a storage capacity of 1.44MB by compressing data by carefully selecting the minimally necessary functions and interfaces. At the current stage of development, we prototyped , text editors, and painting software. All have very simple functions and layouts that are in line with the concept.

We have created it with consideration for ease of use and Fig. 6. Screen of prototype document creation software visibility. In addition, we will improve the practicality by conducting subject experiments to confirm the usability of the system. Although there are currently three types of system C. Paint software configurations, we will continue to develop new systems that Paint software that enables drawing on a computer was can be stored in 1.44 MB. Eventually, the system will be created assuming a simple one that can be operated with a mouse completed as one ‘floppy disk system’ consisting of usable level or touch-pad. As minimum functions for painting, we selected multiple systems, and the overall usability will be examined. the color and line thickness change function, and the delete function. Especially with regard to the color change function, REFERENCES each user tends to have particular preference in the drawing work. Therefore, we implemented the function so that fine [1] Information Processing Society of Japan, “History of the birth and adjustment is possible. In addition, we suppose that the functions development of Japanese computers personal computers”, Information of the software can be fully understood with just the drawing Processing Society of Japan Computer Museum , space. The paint software in this system is implemented with a http://museum.ipsj.or.jp/computer/personal/history.html (2020/7/4) very simple layout. [2] Humming Heads Inc., “History and classification of recording media”, 2014/7/24, The data size of this application is 0.4MB.

1139 https://www.hummingheads.co.jp/reports/feature/1407/140724_01.html https://thevinylfactory.com/news/remute-new-album-floppy-disk/ #1 (2020/7/4) (2020/10/5) [3] THE VERGE, “US nuclear force will phase out floppy disks next year”, [7] Christopher R. Weingarten, “Revolution at 3.5″: Inside Vaporwave’s 2016/5/16, https://www.theverge.com/2016/5/26/11782716/pentagon- Mini-Boom of Floppy Disk Releases”, Rolling Stone, 2018/7/2, nuclear-force-floppy-disk-outdated-tech (2020/7/4) https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/vaporwave-floppy-disk- [4] Neowin, “Report-US-government-spends-tens-of-billions-on- trend-666085/ (2020/10/10) maintaining-50-year-old-computer-systems”, 2016/5/25, [8] BBC news, “Warhol works recovered from old Amiga disks”, 2014/4/24, https://www.neowin.net/news/report-us-government-spends-tens-of- https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27141201 (2020/11/3) billions-on-maintaining-50-year-old-computer-systems (2020/7/4) [9] Gareth Corfield, “Pen Test Partners: Boeing 747s receive critical software [5] Nintendo Co., Ltd., “That secret that will be revealed now! What was the updates over 3.5" floppy disks”, The Register, 2020/8/10, “disk system”?, Nintendo Online Magazine, 2004/8 No.73, https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/10/boeing_747_floppy_drive_upd https://www.nintendo.co.jp/nom/0408/index.html (2020/10/5) ates_walkthrough/ (2020/11/3) [6] Gabriela Helfet “Techno producer Remute releasing new album on floppy disk”, The Vinyl Factory, 2017/11/6,

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