Posted on 07/25/2017 6:12:16 AM PDT by gaggs
A Government Accountability Office report details ‘Museum-Ready’ machines controlling the United States Nuclear force messaging system that are ‘obsolete’.
The US military’s nuclear arsenal is controlled by computers built in the 1970s that still use 8-inch floppy disks.
(Excerpt) Read more at commonsenseevaluation.com ...
I'll bet the military has a supplier who still makes them...for $5,000 per diskette.
Absolutely, the new engineers may be imported liberals from a communist, socialist country.. I guess algebra classes aren’t racist everywhere.
Here ya go, HG.
The Defense Department’s Strategic Automated Command and Control System (DDSACCS), which is used to send and receive emergency action messages to US nuclear forces, runs on a 1970s IBM computing platform. It still uses 8-inch floppy disks to store data.
We’re not even talking the more modern 3.5 inch floppy disk that millennials might only know as the save icon. We’re talking the OG 8-inch floppy, which was a large floppy square with a magnetic disk inside it. They became commercially available in 1971, but were replaced by the 5¼ inch floppy in 1976, and by the more familiar hard plastic 3.5 inch floppy in 1982.
Shockingly, the US Government Accountability Office said: “Replacement parts for the system are difficult to find because they are now obsolete.”
The Pentagon said it was instigating a full replacement of the ancient machines and while the entire upgrade will take longer, the crucial floppy disks should be gone by the end of next year.
Given that magnetic media has a finite shelf life, and that disks and the drives needed to read and write to them are older than some of the operators of the machinery, the floppy revelation makes you wonder whether the US could even launch a nuclear attack if required. An “error, data corrupted” message could be literally life or death.
677436 - Federal Agencies Need to Address Aging Legacy Systems
A report into the state of the US government, released by congressional investigators, has revealed that the country is spending around $60 billion to maintain museum-ready computers, which many do not even know how to operate any more, as their creators retire.
And one system is still tested on a computer using mylar punched tape.
It’s the same one I used in 1972.
The developer just passed away last year at 88.
Hackproof.
Weapons systems take many years, or even decades, to go from planning to design to approval to manufacture - then once in use, they are expected to last for several decades. That is the nature of highly complex and expensive systems planned and purchased by highly complex bureaucracies.
They use state of the art at the time, but the state of the art, particularly in computers, changes very quickly.
“I’ll bet the military has a supplier who still makes them...”
That would be impossible. I used to run the plant that made the jacketing material for all 8 inch discs. The special resin we used is no longer available. The presses we used are gone. The plates to press them are too. All went to other formats in the early 80’s. They must be working off a big inventory.
The US has a huge inventory of vacuum tubes. Why not 8” floppies?
Do they work?
What is to be gained by “upgrading” the systems?
Precisely.
Programmers in the 70s were much better than the ones today. Back then to be a programmer, you really had to know what you were doing.
RIP Wesley A. Clark
Maybe. If they've been well sealed, and in a controlled environment, they might be usable temporarily. But they'll fall apart with normal use in a relatively short time, being that old.
Ask any audio engineer whether the recording tapes from the 1970's are still any good. In many cases the oxide is peeling apart from the mylar backing, or crumbling into dust. The engineer often only gets ONE CHANCE to play the old tape, and copy the contents to another medium.
Floppy diskettes go round-and-round continuously, and the head doesn't "fly" like on a hard disk -- there's real physical contact. The wear rate is substantial.
The better Wesley.
“Back then to be a programmer, you really had to know what you were doing.”
Thank you!
I was chatting with someone who said they were a programmer recently. I asked what he did exactly as in who do you write programs for? He said, hell no, I put together xcel spread sheets and the like for my employer! I was stunned.
Honestly I’d trust a 1970s programmer using 1960s technology
Is there anyone left around that still understands 1960s technology . I heard that no one knows how the US Military pay system works anymore the programming is so old ,LOL
Likely safer than Windows 10.
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