Do you remember the days when it took about 10 floppy disks to install Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego on your PC? Now that floppy disks are entirely a thing of the past, with CDs quickly going the same way, people are constantly coming up with creative and innovative uses for all those floppy disks lying around.

Recycling your old gadgets, and turning them into something entirely new is a great way to pay homage to a gadget or technology that was a significant part of your life. And it looks pretty cool – most of the time.

We’ve put together a list of creative, odd and striking ways that obsolete technology is being used today in art, fashion, decor and more.

Stationery

The most obvious use for floppy disks is to create a nifty littlenotebookfor jotting down your geeky thoughts, and while you’re at it you can also stick your pens and pencils in a cool floppy diskpen holder.

Calling all Scaleup founders! Join the Soonicorn Summit on November 28 in Amsterdam.

Meet with the leaders of Picnic, Miro, Carbon Equity and more during this exclusive event dedicated to Scaleup Founders!

On the road

It you want to turn someone’s head with your fancy ride, you don’t have to shell out a ton of cash to buy a flashy sports car or even spend a ton pimping out your ride. If you have a ton of old floppy disks lying around, you could just glue them to the body of your car, and voila. You’ve got yourself a one of a kind card that’s certain to turn heads. Although not always for the right reasons.

Art

We’ve already shown you examples of how floppy disks can be used to create a stunning, thought provoking series ofworks of art. While Nick Gentry’s project was extremely elaborate, if you want to create some of your own floppy disk art, there’s one pretty easy poster you can create that will definitely appeal to your geeky side. Using a series of black and white floppy disks, you can easily create aSpace Invaderstribute on your wall, in the ultimate marriage of two geekified elements.

Home Decor

Floppy disks can also make it into your home decor as a cool wallclockor even aplanter. Without doing anything to them at all, floppy disks can also make pretty handy mug coasters.

Geek Fashion

And for some geek chic, you can take your floppy disks with you on the go, as abag, or you can even use just part of the floppy disk for a pair of coolearrings.

There are several cool varieties on the floppy disk bag –  you can take advantage of thecolourfularray of disks you might have lying around, or the number of disks you have to go for a different size orshape.

Musical Instrument

We’ve already shown you how one person created his own rendition ofPhantom of the Opera(or as he so aptly called it Phantom of the Floppera) using nothing more than the sounds that floppy disks make. You can turn a stack of floppy disks into a musical instrument of sorts. The sound made when you string a bunch of floppy disks together can emulate the sound of a Japanese instrument called the kokiriko, as you can see in the video below.

Have you come across any interesting and creative uses for the floppy disk? Let us know about them in the comments.

Story byNancy Messieh

Lesotho-born and raised, Nancy Messieh, The Next Web’s Middle East Editor, is an Egyptian writer and photographer based in Cairo, Egypt. Fol(show all)Lesotho-born and raised, Nancy Messieh, The Next Web’s Middle East Editor, is an Egyptian writer and photographer based in Cairo, Egypt. Follow her onTwitter,her siteorGoogle+or get in touch at nancy@thenextweb.com

Get the TNW newsletter

Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.