Comment Re:So... (Score 1) 105
All the old USB drives were like that. I have a 32MB one sitting here on my desk with a write-enable switch on it. About the time they started coming out with the 64-128MB drives is when they stopped putting those switches on them.
The early small ones (4-16MB) were considered to be larger floppies. Floppies had the little tab on them to prevent writing, so the USB drives did too. Once they started becoming more popular, and the capacities started rising, the manufacturers realized they were being used more as a supplement to storage than as a traditional floppy disk. So they started removing the write switch. There are still some made today with that switch, but they are really expensive (considered a premium feature, so they can charge 50% more).