If you ’re too unseasoned to know what a floppy disk is then you may be surprised to learn that it ’s the very thing your life has depended on . And if you do know what a floppy disk is then you ’ll probably be even more surprised by this . fortuitously , though , the time to come of humanity is no longer at the mercy of an disused 8 - in disk , as the US military has ultimately bar using this technical relic tocontrol its armory of atomic weapon .
Developed in the sixties , floppy disks go away from common use several decades ago yet have persist the primary data point storage organisation of the Strategic Automated Command and Control System ( SACCS ) , which coordinates the functioning of the US’snuclear missiles and bombers .
In an interview withC4isrnet , Lieutenant Colonel Jason Rossi of the Air Force ’s 595th Strategic Communications Squadron – which supervise the daily operation of the SACCS – explained that the floppy disk were finally dumped in June of this year . Few inside information of the rise have been made public , but Rossi says that the old disks have been replace by a “ extremely unattackable solid - state of matter digital computer storage resolution . ”
Despite the many limitations that come with using engineering from half a 100 ago , Rossi says the continued usance of floppy disks has actually helped to make the reality a safer place , as “ you ca n’t chop something that does n’t have an IP address . ”
Yet maintenance issuing have ultimately driven the want for modernization , as it is often impossible to source replacement for faulty constituent , mean they all have to be repaired . This is a time - have process , and generally requires tour to be re - pumped up and soldered under a microscope – something modern - day technicians are not trained to do . For this reason , the military mostly bank on aging civilian technician to fix their faulty floppy , as young recruits simply do n’t have the skills to maintain the hardware .
A 2016reportby the US Government Accountability Office ( USGAO ) noted that the SACCS still mesh using an IBM Series/1 computer from the seventies , and that $ 61 billion is presently spend on maintaining this system each year .
The USGAO wrote that the Defense Department contrive to “ update its datum computer storage solvent , port expansion processors , portable end , and screen background terminals , ” last bringing an end to the long time of the floppy disc .
