If you have not already done so, do take the time to contact the manufacturer to see whether they publish their software on compact disc. Few companies continue to distribute their software solely on floppy disks. As programs have grown in size and installers have become more sophisticated, the CD-ROM has almost entirely replaced the floppy disk as the preferred medium for the distribution and installation of software.
Nevertheless, if the software is simply not available on CD, consider the following possible alternatives:
A. Install the program over a network.
If your iMac is connected via ethernet to another computer that has a floppy disk drive, it may be possible to perform a network installation of the software from that computer. Not all software installers will permit this kind of installation. To set up a network installation, proceed as follows:
1. Create an empty folder on the hard drive of the computer that has the floppy disk drive. We will call it "Net Install," though the name is not important.
2. Insert the floppy disk and drag its icon on top of the Net Install folder. Do not open the floppy and drag its contents; rather, drag the whole floppy disk icon. The contents of the floppy will then be recreated inside the Net Install folder, in a subfolder of the same name as the floppy. Repeat this step for every other floppy in the installation set. Afterward, the Net Install folder will contain a subfolder representing each floppy disk in the set.
3. Open the Net Install folder, then open the folder representing the first floppy disk in the set. If you see an installer and an installer script inside, move them both out of that folder and into the root level of the Net Install folder, alongside the other floppy disk folders you created. If you do not see a separate installer script, it may be necessary to leave the installer where it is for this to work. Try it both ways if necessary.
4. Set up the Net Install folder to be shared over the network, then go to the iMac and log on to that shared volume. Once mounted on the iMac's desktop, you can open the Net Install folder and double-click the program installer within to begin installation on the iMac. Alternatively, you can drag-copy the whole Net Install folder to the iMac's hard drive, then run the installer from there. If, during the course of the install, you are asked to insert a floppy, cancel the install and try moving the installer into or out of the root level of the Net Install folder, as per step 3. Then try installing again. If that too fails, a network installation is probably not possible with that software.
B. Create disk images on another computer.
This is a variant of the network install, except that a disk image of a floppy contains ALL of the contents of the original floppy, including invisible files. The previous method excludes those files, the lack of which can cause an installation to fail.
Disk images are created with utilities like Disk Copy, from Apple Computer, or ShrinkWrap, from Aladdin Systems. Once created, a disk image can either be opened over the network or copied first to the iMac computer's hard disk, then opened from there. For software that comes on multiple floppy disks, ensure that all of the disk images that represent them have been mounted before initiating the install. For more information on the creation and use of disk images, refer to the instructions provided with the disk image utility.
C. Obtain a USB device that can use floppy disks. There are a variety of external storage solutions available for the iMac, some of which can use floppy disks.