Many other icons in the set are also anachronisms, or will soon be. An alarm clock with two bells. A credit card with a magnetic stripe. A paper calendar with ring binders. A two-roll tape recorder ("voice mail", apparently).
Personally I think that the floppy disk is a good icon precisely because it has ceased to be an everyday physical object. Today, the outline of a 3.5" disk simply means "save" -- there's no other valid association for this shape any more.
That is the original definition of an icon: an image that transcends its apparent meaning. Orthodox Christian icons were certainly representational, but the presence of holiness was communicated by a commonly understood system of signs that went beyond the level of appearances.
A more modern example of an icon in this sense could be Andy Warhol's images of Marilyn Monroe: calling them "silk-screened reproductions of the portrait of an actress" doesn't capture anything about their cultural meaning.
Personally I think that the floppy disk is a good icon precisely because it has ceased to be an everyday physical object. Today, the outline of a 3.5" disk simply means "save" -- there's no other valid association for this shape any more.
That is the original definition of an icon: an image that transcends its apparent meaning. Orthodox Christian icons were certainly representational, but the presence of holiness was communicated by a commonly understood system of signs that went beyond the level of appearances.
A more modern example of an icon in this sense could be Andy Warhol's images of Marilyn Monroe: calling them "silk-screened reproductions of the portrait of an actress" doesn't capture anything about their cultural meaning.