Boeing 747s Use Floppy Disks to Get Critical Software Updates

erek

erek

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"But getting back to planes, modern isn’t always better. The Boeing 737 Max, for instance, featured advanced software systems, but glitches resulted in two horrific crashes that killed 346 passengers, leading Boeing to halt production on the line at the end of last year. Yet another software issue with the 737 Max was found in February, and after more than a year of the planes being grounded, Boeing just restarted production in May. Conversely, while the Boeing 747-400 is no longer in production, only two have ever been involved in passenger deaths over 8.42 million flights, per Airsafe.com."

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https://gizmodo.com/boeing-747s-sti...et-critical-soft-1844683811?rev=1597159907246
 
Pfeh, 5.25" Nashua's and I might be horrified, but this? This just seems like par for the course. Somewhere out there twin-spool reel to reel data retrieval is probably still going on......and functioning.
 
Sometimes it doesn't make sense to "Re-invent the wheel" every time you change something when you already have a battle-hardened option available that still meets your needs.

Take the new Mars rover "Perseverance" for example; just launched a couple of weeks ago, on July 30th. It's CPU is basically the same "G3" CPU that was included in the first generation of CRT-based iMacs back in the 90's. Why did they choose such an ancient CPU? Because it's a CPU that has proven itself to be very reliable on past missions, in the hostile environment of space, and it is still enough to get the job done. You don't want a failure on the way to, or on mars, because you used unproven tech. Just the same, you don't want a passenger airplane to have reliability issues or quirks as a result of using new unproven technology. Then you end up in a situation like Boeing got into with the 737 Max.

The 747-400 referenced in the article is a retired passenger jet. These jets were produced between 1988 and 2005. Meaning potentially 32 years old, and even if it was the very last jet that came off the production line, it would still be 15 years old. Floppy disks were mainstream tech throughout most of that era.

cybereality said:
What a joke.
Click to expand...

I guess I missed the joke, maybe you could help point it out for me.
 
Well, I mean, consider when they were built...

Maybe some of the newer system upgrades don't do it this way (I know there have been a few avionics upgrades over the years, so maybe?) but the 747 took it's first flight in 1969. I'm surprised something of that vintage even has a floppy.

...or maybe the floppy IS part of the updated avionics. :p

There was no fancy glass avionics system back then...
 
floppy disks aren't reliable storage mediums nor is it safe or good practice to have current in-use systems using obsolete / out of production tech that nobody is currently familiar with servicing.

USB flash drives aren't permanent either since they must be plugged in periodically to retain the flash memory state.

optical media when properly stored (dry out of direct sunlight) should last longer than the lifetime of the plane. Plus, there is plenty of capacity for multiple copies of a firmware to be stored to safeguard against read errors / other forms of bit rot. or if they have properly pressed optical discs instead of burned from dye type, you dont even need to really worry about how you store them as long as you're not scratching them. They would last 50+ years easy.

I'd vote optical media.
 
Darth Ender said:
floppy disks aren't reliable storage mediums nor is it safe or good practice to have current in-use systems using obsolete / out of production tech that nobody is currently familiar with servicing.

USB flash drives aren't permanent either since they must be plugged in periodically to retain the flash memory state.

optical media when properly stored (dry out of direct sunlight) should last longer than the lifetime of the plane. Plus, there is plenty of capacity for multiple copies of a firmware to be stored to safeguard against read errors / other forms of bit rot. or if they have properly pressed optical discs instead of burned from dye type, you dont even need to really worry about how you store them as long as you're not scratching them. They would last 50+ years easy.

I'd vote optical media.
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These are for updates that apparently expire every 4 weeks. Long term storage isn't a requirement. I wouldn't pick floppy drives for a new plane today (and I'm sure Boeing hasn't delivered a plane with a floppy drive in years), but there's no reason to retrofit new storage as long as the current system still works. There's a pretty good chance these 747s will be taken out of service before their floppy drives die. In terms of choices that could be made for a model starting in 1988, I don't think 3.5" floppy is a bad choice; it's more compact (and probably lighter weight) than a cd-rom drive (especially a 1988 era cd-rom drive), and there would be less delay in getting disks out to maintenance facilities than if the updates needed to be pressed onto cds, and cd-r's didn't become readily accessible until several years later.
 
GotNoRice said:
Sometimes it doesn't make sense to "Re-invent the wheel" every time you change something when you already have a battle-hardened option available that still meets your needs.

Take the new Mars rover "Perseverance" for example; just launched a couple of weeks ago, on July 30th. It's CPU is basically the same "G3" CPU that was included in the first generation of CRT-based iMacs back in the 90's. Why did they choose such an ancient CPU? Because it's a CPU that has proven itself to be very reliable on past missions, in the hostile environment of space, and it is still enough to get the job done. You don't want a failure on the way to, or on mars, because you used unproven tech. Just the same, you don't want a passenger airplane to have reliability issues or quirks as a result of using new unproven technology. Then you end up in a situation like Boeing got into with the 737 Max.

The 747-400 referenced in the article is a retired passenger jet. These jets were produced between 1988 and 2005. Meaning potentially 32 years old, and even if it was the very last jet that came off the production line, it would still be 15 years old. Floppy disks were mainstream tech throughout most of that era.
Click to expand...

I'm also fairly sure the G3 that they are using is radiation hardened, and nobody has produced a more modern CPU with the required level of hardening. The Ingenuity helicopter is using a much faster CPU, but isn't hardened to the same level, and can't operate until groundside (and will still be one of the test articles).
 
Darth Ender said:
floppy disks aren't reliable storage mediums nor is it safe or good practice to have current in-use systems using obsolete / out of production tech that nobody is currently familiar with servicing.

USB flash drives aren't permanent either since they must be plugged in periodically to retain the flash memory state.

optical media when properly stored (dry out of direct sunlight) should last longer than the lifetime of the plane. Plus, there is plenty of capacity for multiple copies of a firmware to be stored to safeguard against read errors / other forms of bit rot. or if they have properly pressed optical discs instead of burned from dye type, you dont even need to really worry about how you store them as long as you're not scratching them. They would last 50+ years easy.

I'd vote optical media.
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I'd imagine the floppies ate just used as a short term transfer media.

You know, something like this:
1.) Write media to floppy
2.) Immediately initialize firmare upgrade on plane using floppy
3.) Firmware upgrade process performs checksum check before and after flashing to EEPROM.

This ought to eliminate any corruption risks.
 
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I have a weird sense of nostalgia about portable writable media. I remember I always wanted to have a zip drive and of course never did.
By the time I could afford one, they ceased to be relevant with cheaper optical media taking its place. I never ended up getting a Zip.

In its own way floppies live on. I guess you could argue that flash drives are essentially descendants of floppy and zip.
 
trick0502 said:
I still keep a usb floppy drive at work. All of my coworkers laugh at it.
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I only recently tossed mine. Used to use it f or smaller file transfers to my secure system, but now that everything is gargantuan, I just gave up, and burned a cd
 
I had a zip drive. Those were pretty great back then. I think it was 100MB, so blew floppies away, but CDR was just getting popular so it didn't live long.

I always wished MiniDiscs would have caught on. There was something so futuristic about them, especially in movies like The Matrix and Strange Days.

Got a Blu-Ray burner just to complete my rig, but I rarely use it. Too inconvenient compared to USB flash drives. But I still like physical media in this age where everything is virtual.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
I have a weird sense of nostalgia about portable writable media. I remember I always wanted to have a zip drive and of course never did.
By the time I could afford one, they ceased to be relevant with cheaper optical media taking its place. I never ended up getting a Zip.
Click to expand...

I had a zip drive, and it was useful for a while, I had my drive at home, and drives at work, so I could download stuff at work. And my community college had zip drives, so I could bring stuff back and forth from home... But then the drives at school got click of death, and one of my disks got it (I was able to fix it with some utility off the net before my drive got it) and that was the end of that. At some point in there, I got a cable modem, and shell accounts, and started moving my work that way. When I transfered to a 4 year school, they had laptops with ls-120 drives, but nobody had any ls-120 disks... The ls-120 drives were bettee at reading regular floppies than regular drives though.
 
Ah. I forgot about the click of death. Had that happen to me too.

After that I got an enclosure for a desktop IDE drive, and connected to FireWire if I remember correct. Was really smoking back then.
 
Look how long it has taken for the software changes for the 737s to get tested and approved.
How much longer would it take if they had to requalify the hardware too?

When lives are at stake, you don't change things for the sake of change. Thats what entry-level call center IT kids do.
 
toast0 said:
I had a zip drive, and it was useful for a while, I had my drive at home, and drives at work, so I could download stuff at work. And my community college had zip drives, so I could bring stuff back and forth from home... But then the drives at school got click of death, and one of my disks got it (I was able to fix it with some utility off the net before my drive got it) and that was the end of that. At some point in there, I got a cable modem, and shell accounts, and started moving my work that way. When I transfered to a 4 year school, they had laptops with ls-120 drives, but nobody had any ls-120 disks... The ls-120 drives were bettee at reading regular floppies than regular drives though.
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Heh. I had to look up the ls120.

Having been very active in PC circles since the late 80's I just missed the entire superdisk phenomenon somehow.

I don't remember ever hearing of them before.
 
What I love about this is that "diskette stowage" is an actual valid english statement that isn't said in cartoon voice (that old cowboy that hunted rabbit).

Lol
 
Darth Ender said:
floppy disks aren't reliable storage mediums nor is it safe or good practice to have current in-use systems using obsolete / out of production tech that nobody is currently familiar with servicing.
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Everyone servicing these planes is 100% familiar with the technology.

Darth Ender said:
optical media when properly stored (dry out of direct sunlight) should last longer than the lifetime of the plane.
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Optical media has ~15 to 25 year lifespan, and sometimes less. It is not uncommon for a plane to be flying that is over 50 years old. 747's fly for 27 to 30 years before being retired. Which can mean sold to 3rd world countries for another 20 years of life.
 
GoodBoy said:
Optical media has ~15 to 25 year lifespan, and sometimes less.
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M-Disc can last 1,000 years, but obviously didn't exist when these planes were built.

And, yeah, I have an M-Disc burner. Did some tests, but I have no way to verify the 1,000 year claim.
 
Meeho said:
I would bet that whatever they replaced them with is both less reliable and less secure.
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Security through obscurity is not.

That being said it was a system that was approved by the FAA and likely would take A LOT more money than just replacing the physical units to get a new system certified.
 
Meeho said:
I would bet that whatever they replaced them with is both less reliable and less secure.
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I don't know any details about their designs, but I'd like to hope that the philosophy both for nuclear weapons control systems AND for critical avionics systems, and that is that they are completely air-gapped so they cannot easily be compromised.

Stuxnet shows us that even airgapping is not perfect, but it certainly makes it a lot more difficult to compromise.
 
Darth Ender said:
floppy disks aren't reliable storage mediums nor is it safe or good practice to have current in-use systems using obsolete / out of production tech that nobody is currently familiar with servicing.

USB flash drives aren't permanent either since they must be plugged in periodically to retain the flash memory state.

optical media when properly stored (dry out of direct sunlight) should last longer than the lifetime of the plane. Plus, there is plenty of capacity for multiple copies of a firmware to be stored to safeguard against read errors / other forms of bit rot. or if they have properly pressed optical discs instead of burned from dye type, you dont even need to really worry about how you store them as long as you're not scratching them. They would last 50+ years easy.

I'd vote optical media.
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But what happens when you drop the disk under the rudder pedals and don't bother picking it up for a few weeks. Then the music skips all the time. It's bad. That's what.

Tapes ftw.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I don't know any details about their designs, but I'd like to hope that the philosophy both for nuclear weapons control systems AND for critical avionics systems, and that is that they are completely air-gapped so they cannot easily be compromised.

Stuxnet shows us that even airgapping is not perfect, but it certainly makes it a lot more difficult to compromise.
Click to expand...

Yes to nukes no to avionics by nature of the work. They get in flight updates from various services such as weather, routing, etc.
 
I was wondering where you can buy diskettes and floppydisk.com have got 50 for 50$, seems fair. I wonder if that's where Boeing gets theirs
 
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