In article ,
Whisky-dave wrote:

All laptops most bought external drives with them.

nope. people used the duo standalone, without a dock or peripheral.
whatever docks they had remained at home or work.

The docks had a floppy drive, that was part of the point of them.

only the full size dock had a floppy drive. it also had card slots.
doesn't mean any of it was used.

the minidock just added ports:
https://www.oldcomputr.com/wp-conten...le_macintosh_d
uo_minidock.jpg
https://www.oldcomputr.com/wp-conten...le_macintosh_d
uo_minidock-back.jpg
https://www.oldcomputr.com/wp-conten...le_powerbook_2
300c-minidock-undocking.jpg

third party docks also added ports, but in different combinations and
usually fewer so that the dock was smaller. the various microdocks were
quite popular, which added just one or two ports.

Again more expense and general not worth it, the duo's didn't last long and
were soon better models were out.

duos lasted roughly 7 years, a lot longer than many other models,
including the imac g3 and g4 *combined*.