The United States nuclear system still run on eight-inch floppy disks @ ExtremeTech
it is no secret that I'm a bit of a computer hardware enthusiast and I have garnered that title over years (yes Years) of research and personal experience. In fact it annoys me to watch "tech" people on YouTube talk about computer systems and not know what a BIOS Debug card is or, cannot recognize a Pentium 4 motherboard or, who have never seen a floppy drive. Sure these are obsolete these days however, understanding old hardware is the cornerstone of learning the new.
For instance this article over at ExtremeTech is talking about how much of the Nuclear defense of the United States is still run on 8-inch floppy disks. I'm not old enough to have used an 8-inch floppy and I suspect many nerds of the 70's liked to joke about them. The point is back "in the day" your PC didn't have a hard drive so the OS had to be loaded from a floppy disk and during the course of doing anything you often switched them to save documents.
70's technology is quite different from modern hardware and while it may be simple and slow it is also extremely stable and 1000x more secure than your home computer. These systems had no network connection, very little low level hardware to exploit and they run for years without issue. In a way these stand-alone systems are perfect for critical security.
That sounds pretty terrible, and it’s certainly the claim repeated in headlines across the Internet today. And there’s definitely truth to it — reports from back in 2014 highlighted that the Air Force was still using 8-inch floppies and 70s-era technology to run its nuclear silos. There are, however, some inconsistencies in the GAO report and some advantages to using such ancient technology.
These was a similar story that came out several years ago that talked about how ICBMs are largely controlled by vacuum transistors. Sure it was the latest technology of the late 50's but is also EMP resistant meaning that even after a nuclear detonation you can still fire up the rockets and know they are going to work. That cannot be said for any solid state circuitry.
It really makes you appreciate how smart our engineers really are.
Related Web URL: http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/229239-the-unit...
