The US military is dropping 8-inch floppy disks for SSDs in its nuclear weapons systems

[rangerrebew]

The US military is dropping 8-inch floppy disks for SSDs in its nuclear weapons systems

Good to know
By Rob Thubron,

What just happened? The US is rightly regarded as a world leader when it comes to military technology and power, so it always seemed strange that the nation still used 1970’s IBM Series-1 computers – complete with eight-inch floppy disks – as part of its nuclear weapons systems. But now, those drives are being updated with modern solid-state versions.

Back in 2016, it was reported that US agencies, including the Pentagon, were still using the ancient systems. “Legacy IT investments across the federal government are becoming increasingly obsolete,” stated a report from the Government Accountability Office. “For instance, [the Department of] Defense is still using 8-inch floppy disks in a legacy system that coordinates the operational functions of the United States’ nuclear forces.”

https://www.techspot.com/news/82400-us-military-dropping-8-inch-floppy-disks-ssds.html

[PeteS in CA]

The IBM Series-1 was a technological dead-end, even within IBM's Wonderful World of Blue. There was no path from the Series-1 to any other IBM mini or mainframe system. That meant that at some point from initial installation forward the entire control system would have to be re-written from scratch to migrate to anything more modern.

8-inch floppies are a great symbol of the obsolescence, but the bigger boondoggle was not using something from IBM's System 370 line, which had migration paths well into at least the early 90s.