You have it way easier these days, but back in the day, when you wanted to play a game on your PC, you had to take a similar ...

Optical drives are still practical for many users, whether to play old CDs and DVDs, install software, or create backups—especially with modern laptops, which are usually supplied without a drive.

The 1.44-megabyte floppy-disk drive is an endangered species largely because its primary predator, the CD-rewritable drive, uses media that can store up to 700MB per disk and costs only about $100. CD ...