America’s Nuclear Arsenal Still Relies on Floppy Disks

Not shocked; the cost to upgrade the HW probably doesn't justify it. Nevermind its solid as a rock.
 
Ducman69 said:
Alpha particles? If you're talking about an EMP, the craps underground and you can shield modern equipment too.

If this also has an OS from the 60s, I have to wonder what happens when the geezers that know the details of how everything works keel over?

I can already see they try to launch a nuke and nothing happens, then they have to wake up grandpa and he tells them to just copy the data over to another floppy since the thirty year old one degraded, and two and a half hours later they try again and get a PC Load Letter error and the entire North American continent is already destroyed in a nuclear holocaust.
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You're missing a couple of important points. If we're launching those thingies, someone else already has and we're gonna all get turned into radioactive zombies anyhow so it really doesn't matter if we actually can fire ze missiles back at them because we're already pretty much squished.

The second and most important point is that floppies have sharp edges and can be used as ninja star type weapons. That means we don't have to give the Air Force people sitting around in the launch facilities any weapons because they're already armed with deadly floppies of doom.

floppy-disk-ninja-star_design.png
 
Farkle said:
Older the equipment, less chance of it frying due to alpha particles. There is wisdom in spaced logic circuitry.

I have to wonder though, why floppies? Why not tapes?
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Alpha is helium particle release
Beta is electron escape through neutron decay
Gamma if electromagnetic radiation (not all of it ionizing)

Alpha is harmless.
 
That tech could destroy the world 100 times over back then and it can still do the same today.

I feel much safer knowing it's in place. No point in fixing what isn't broken and we don't need another .gov mess with nuclear missiles.
 
Many nuclear power plants in the UK still are controlled by punch tape computers.

When you refuse to let people replace stuff people have to start making do with old equipment.
 
Those old 8" floppy disks have really low density and are quite reliable. Even the 5.25" are quite good. I have plenty of old PC games on 5.25" floppy disks (Master of Orion, Master of Magic, Ultima 3-7, System Shock, to name a few) and they still work just fine.

Also, they don't store codes on floppy disks.
 
Astral Abyss said:
Those old 8" floppy disks have really low density and are quite reliable. Even the 5.25" are quite good.
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Very true. I remember as a kid I could take a 5.25" floppy, crinkle it into a ball, flatten it out again, and the computer would still read the disk just fine :D
 
The same reason the battle star Galactica survived, old tech that the Cylons could not infiltrate. :D
 
"Floppy disks, which were commonly found in home computers up through most the 1980s and maybe even early 1990s, have been phased out for ages. However, they still are in active duty at missile sites here in the states."

Is it just me that is bothered by the notion that a theoretically knowledgeable source has no idea when floppy disks finally bit the dust? I mean zip drives didn't even come around until 1994. I have commercial software and driver disks on the things from well past 2000.
 
So, to launch a nuke, you press option 3. Enter launch code. Wait for the floppy to load.....
...
...

...
Please insert disk 2....
...
...
WTF?! WHERE IS DISK 2?!
...
Found it.
...
Loading disk 2....
...
...
...
17 minutes later.
...
Press any key to launch..
...
Nuke launched.

Floppies became obsolete to me when it was faster to email the file to myself than it was to copy from the disk (even from the disk sitting on the desk..). File transfer speeds suck on floppies.

Secure, though.
 
They are there because it works, also these are hardened against EMP, which on older tech is easier to do.

I'm sure the government purchased replacement parts to build each system 5 times over.
 
DigitalGriffin said:
Alpha is helium particle release

Alpha is harmless.
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Similar to a helium nucleus, you mean. The lack of the two orbital electrons makes it different from a helium atom.

Alpha particles are harmless because of the low density required to shield it (literally as thin as a piece of paper), but that doesn't stop a localized event from happening, nor does it stop a high enough energy event and a stray energized particle shooting off and ruining your day without a bit flip re-write/detection system.

A big enough solar storm is going to cause a lot more problems for recent hardware, when compared to something from the 70s (or even as new as the 80s with a 256kb RAM module.) You don't even need to think towards external sources either, a leaky component can create lattice displacement inside of your shielded environment causing unexpected results for the amount of "uptime" these systems have.
 
Ur_Mom said:
So, to launch a nuke, you press option 3. Enter launch code. Wait for the floppy to load.....
...
...

...
Please insert disk 2....
...
...
WTF?! WHERE IS DISK 2?!
...
Found it.
...
Loading disk 2....
...
...
...
17 minutes later.
...
Press any key to launch..
...
Nuke launched.

Floppies became obsolete to me when it was faster to email the file to myself than it was to copy from the disk (even from the disk sitting on the desk..). File transfer speeds suck on floppies.

Secure, though.
Click to expand...

More like...

Loading disk 2...

*disk drive makes unholy noises*

Cannot read from disk 2...

Please insert disk 2...

Oh shit.
 
Phoenix333 said:
Piston engines were designed prior to the 20th century, and they're still in use, despite the invention of the turbine,.....
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Riiight, and you commute to work everyday in your model T ?

Astral Abyss said:
Those old 8" floppy disks have really low density and are quite reliable. Even the 5.25" are quite good. I have plenty of old PC games on 5.25" floppy disks (Master of Orion, Master of Magic, Ultima 3-7, System Shock, to name a few) and they still work just fine.
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I would really love to hear how often you check them. Better hope that motherboard doesn't die, they don't seem to make ISA slots anymore or controllers. Maybe you can afford one of these http://lib.stanford.edu/digitial-fo...s/catweasel-universal-floppy-drive-controller ( I hear they're pretty spendy) The next example cuts to the core..

Parja said:
More like...

Loading disk 2...

*disk drive makes unholy noises*

Cannot read from disk 2...

Please insert disk 2...

Oh shit.
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I wonder how many warehouse full of 8" disks and duplication drives they have stashed away? If the disk fails to read before your launch target window do they save the nuke for a sneak attack the next day? :rolleyes:
 
It wasn't until the latest round of BIOS's and Windows 7 that you could install a RAID 0 array as you boot drive and not need a "floppy" disk (though a CD or USB could be configured to fake being one) to load the drivers for Windows install.

So I only unplugged and put away my floppy drive in this most recent build. :rolleyes:
 
I am rather surprised some people say if its not broke don't fix it and old technology is reliable. Flopy disks were one of the most unreliable pieces of computer technology I can ever remember. Those things were always failing / corrupting.
 
xX_Jack_Carver_Xx said:
It wasn't until the latest round of BIOS's and Windows 7 that you could install a RAID 0 array as you boot drive and not need a "floppy" disk (though a CD or USB could be configured to fake being one) to load the drivers for Windows install.

So I only unplugged and put away my floppy drive in this most recent build. :rolleyes:
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Say what? I've been doing USB installs on BIOS enabled RAID arrays since Vista first came out which was like 6-7 years ago. Even before that, you could simply build an image with RAID drivers and the like already included. :)
 
Ducman69 said:
You and I know very well that the reason this isn't replaced is because no one wants to be responsible for approving replacement hardware for such a critical system.
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How would I know this? I'm not involved in procuring replacement parts for nuclear missile silos. Are you?

Its all about the red tape and the technical incompetence of the vast government wing responsible for its upkeep
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I'm assuming you mean the Department of Defense? I would assume they're the ones in charge of that.

its far simpler to continue the status quo even if it means spending $50K to buy five of some old part out of production for 50 years and simply say "hey that's how much it costs" than to rock the boat and suggest a complete overhaul.
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Do you really want a glitch in an untested, unproven system to accidentally launch a nuke? Why would the system need to be upgraded? It's far safer to just keep what's already working properly maintained. As for people keeling over that know how to fix the stuff... replacement staff can be (and have been) trained you know. It's not like there's exactly one old geezer that knows how it all works and if he dies that's the end of it.

As for replacement parts... consider how a nuclear missile silo works. You put it in the ground, and then it sits and waits. If it sits for 40-60 years, how often do you plan on upgrading the computers? Let's say someone changed the hardware 20 years ago. They would have been running an original Pentium. How much have computers changed since then? What does a computer responsible for doing one thing - preventing unauthorized people from launching a nuclear missile - do besides prevent unauthorized people from launching a nuclear missile? You want it to be able to play Crysis 3 or something? Even a P5 is overpowered for something that a modern pocket calculator could take care of. It's like sticking a V12 turbo diesel on an RC car that only needs a small 24v motor. It's just a waste of resources that can be better used elsewhere.
 
DigitalGriffin said:
Alpha is helium particle release
Beta is electron escape through neutron decay
Gamma if electromagnetic radiation (not all of it ionizing)

Alpha is harmless.
Click to expand...

one might say helium being harmful is laughable.
 
Now we know why the "Football" is still such a big heavy looking breifcase. No matter how small you make the rest of the electronics, that 5 1/4" "Tempested" Floppy is going to take up some space.
 
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