Bah. No reason to advance beyond 5 1/4. Buy a notcher, and you can turn them into “flippy” drives and double your storage.
You think they're still good after 30 years?
When I was in the Navy (I was a sonar tech but hugely self-taught in computers) in the late 1980’s, early 1990’s I saw a few huge floppy disks... they may have been larger than 8” floppies.
My reaction was basically, “what the f*#$ are these?”.
Upgraded from the old HP 1000s I see ...
The government won’t replace things that work unless they have to.
Recall the secretaries working with the Wang word processors used to use the big floppys back in the day. But that was back when some people were still using the dictation machines too.
Would probably still work today. A lot of computer “upgrades” are driven more by the need to sell technology than to improve technology.
For years the backup command and control software for missile warning satellites ran on an HP2114 with magnetic core memory, and it was tied to an old teletype for input/output. But it worked.
Hack this!
Its time to upgrade to a PDP11.
Sometimes the military uses antiquated equipment, especially software, to ensure that all the bugs and shortfalls are known and worked out. In this case, I'm wondering where they are getting their supply of 8-inch floppies.
Only shiny new programs buy votes.
Maintenance and upgrades have alway suffered.
A key flight test-set for MMIII, Mk-12’s, still used mylar punched tape in 2005.
(perhaps still)
These disks don’t last that long. Periodically we used to copy over important stuff to new disks to avoid data loss.
What are they doing?
Braggarts.
Oh, wait, they said floppy DISKS!
Floppy DISKS.
My bad.
Since these old computer systems aren’t Y2K compliant, I’m curious was dates they are using.
Yeah, so let’s put everything on an advanced network; what could go wrong?
First desktop computer I ever used had 2 8-inch floppy drives, no hard drive. TRS-80, Model II. That was about 1981-84.
How old I am: in the 70’s I and some friends went to a “Computer Faire” in Kenosha, WI, between Chicago and Milwaukee. The Shugart company was showing off their new dual-floppy disk drives, and they hired some well-endowed young ladies to wear T-shirts strategically emblazoned with “I have dual floppies” on the front.
I’ve loved them ever since.
When I graduated from college, I went to work for an actuarial consulting firm that used paper tape on an IBM 1620. There was one 1620 with a punch card reader, which was reserved for senior staff.
Isn’t it easier to secure a physical disc than a storage system connected to outside access by heaven-knows-who?