US military uses 8-inch floppy disks to coordinate nuclear force operations

CNBC ^ | May 25, 2016 | Dan Mangan

[C19fan]

Maybe they use the '80s flick "War Games" as a training film, too.

The U.S. Defense Department is still using — after several decades — 8-inch floppy disks in a computer system that coordinates the operational functions of the nation's nuclear forces, a jaw-dropping new report reveals.

The Defense Department's 1970s-era IBM Series/1 Computer and long-outdated floppy disks handle functions related to intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear bombers and tanker support aircraft, according to the new Government Accountability Office report.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Buy a notcher, and you can turn them into “flippy” drives and double your storage.

Ah...those were the days. I still have a bunch of those with software on them. I wonder if they are any good.

I stopped notching after I disassembled my 5 1/4" drive, found the optic sensor that finds the read/write notch and installed a toggle switch on it. Complete with a red/green LED that would show read only or writeable status.

[G Larry]

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)

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

I used to use audio cassette tapes.

Me too. Wang 2500.

[PLMerite]

Yeah, there are some critical systems that you can’t tolerate having “teething problems” with.

[ChildOfThe60s]

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?

[Lazamataz]

US military uses 8-inch floppy disks

Braggarts.

Oh, wait, they said floppy DISKS!

Floppy DISKS.

My bad.

[tet68]

I saw a few huge floppy disks... they may have been larger than 8” floppies.

My reaction was basically, “what the f*#$ are these?”.

They’re called LP’s.

[Covenantor]

Way back when my personal computer was a Leading Edge and the only computer in the office I had ordered SuperCalc spreadsheet software on 5 1/4” diskettes to be addressed “Personal”.

The new office mgr, whose only experience had been in non-profits opened the package stapled a routing slip through disk and smashed the HD self inking date stamper leaving four indents on the disk. Totally useless.

A phone call explaining my problem resulted in hilarious laughter and a promise to FedEx a replacement to my home.

Said office mgr was fired a month later after proving she has zero understanding of standard office procedures and our particulr stds described in our manual...too busy to RFTFM.

[baltimorepoet]

LOL, no they definitely weren’t LP’s. They probably were 8” disks but they just seemed huge to me.

I had been used to the 5 1/4” (with Commodore 64) and later the Amiga 500 with the 3.5”.

[aimhigh]

Since these old computer systems aren’t Y2K compliant, I’m curious was dates they are using.

[tet68]

Just joking, but they were a kind of data storage device
if you think about it.

[jagusafr]

Run the degausser over ‘em a time or two and they’ll be good as new! Blank, but good as new...

[Elderberry]

I used them on my SYM-1

[Stingray51]

Yeah, so let’s put everything on an advanced network; what could go wrong?

[TomGuy]

First desktop computer I ever used had 2 8-inch floppy drives, no hard drive. TRS-80, Model II. That was about 1981-84.

[TomGuy]

No reason to advance beyond 5 1/4. Buy a notcher, and you can turn them into “flippy” drives and double your storage.

Could be done with a pair of scissors, too.

And similar with the 3.5's. Been so long, something about drilling a hole on the opposite corner or taping a hole. Anyway, there was a way to expand the 3.5's capacity.

[budj]

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.

[Elderberry]

I used a VT-100 Terminal on my Sym-1, with a 300 baud modem, to connect to the University’s computer system in 1982.

[ComradeBork]

Ah, the memories. In the late 80’s I was an exciter tech in VAQ-131 and our bench was controlled by an HP 1000E. Awesome machine, with a full megabyte of RAM (if I remember correctly), and 20 megabytes of hard disk storage, 10 of which was on removable disks about the size of a frozen pizza. Best part was, to boot the machine you had to enter a 16 bit code to tell it which sector on the hard disk to boot from. You didn’t type the code in at the terminal, you punched it in on 16 rocker switches on the front panel. It was the weirdest combination of high and low tech. This was at a time when home machines varied from 4K to 64K of RAM, and 20mb of disk was unheard of (it was four to five years later before I got my first work computer with a hard drive, also 20 mb).

Thanks for the memories...

[TomGuy]

The government won’t replace things that work unless they have to.

In the 1990s, several people I knew got home desktop computers. After a while, they would complain about the slowness, etc. These were the old 8086 and 286 IBM-compatible types. I would tell them, 'that computer sitting on your desk at home is more powerful than the computers that put the first man on the moon.'

When I used the desktop TRS-80, Model II, it had 64k of ram. One of the mainframe computer guys told me he was jealous, because the mainframes only had 32k.

My current desktop has 12 Gb.