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Re: US government still using floppy disks

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On Sun, 29 May 2016 07:30:40 +0100
James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 27/05/2016 07:38, Rod Pemberton wrote:
> > On Thu, 26 May 2016 08:24:43 +0100
> > James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> wrote:

> >> US government still using floppy disks. Even the really old 8"
> >> ones!
> >>
> >> http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/26/us/pentagon-floppy-disks-nuclear/
> >>
> >> There is a link to the original PDF report in the CNN article. Just
> >> one part therefrom:
> >>
> >> "Department of Defense uses 8-inch floppy disks in a legacy system
> >> that coordinates the operational functions of the nation’s nuclear
> >> forces. In addition, Department of the Treasury uses assembly
> >> language code—a computer language initially used in the 1950s and
> >> typically tied to the hardware for which it was developed."
> >>
> >> If it ain't broke....
> >>  
> >
> > For the amount of money they spend on this stuff, they could have
> > custom systems manufactured to replace or modernize it.  Most of
> > these systems would be better off with modern technology.  This is
> > just waste and laziness.  Everyone wonders why many people in the
> > U.S. are against government provided healthcare.  
> 
> It's easy to replace hardware but the problem may be software. My
> guess is that they have old programs which have worked for years but
> no one understands the programs well enough to rewrite them.
> 
> Some programs are probably too fragile for their recompiled versions
> to be relied upon.
> 

There are at least two solutions to that: binary translation and
emulation.  There is no reason why this couldn't be emulated in the
internet cloud, unless these are military airgap (offline, isolated)
systems.  The best solution, I think, for our government would be to
build their own military grade, cloud computing and migrate to it.  They
could easily pay Amazon or M$ or probably even IBM to build it for them.
Then, they could use whatever dumb terminal or thin client or computer
or tablet they wanted for users.


Rod Pemberton
Sorry, I wrote this nearly a week ago and forgot to send it.

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Thread

US government still using floppy disks James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-05-26 08:24 +0100
  Re: US government still using floppy disks Rod Pemberton <NoHaveNotOne@bcczxcfre.cmm> - 2016-05-27 02:38 -0400
    Re: US government still using floppy disks James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-05-29 07:30 +0100
      Re: US government still using floppy disks Rod Pemberton <NoHaveNotOne@bcczxcfre.cmm> - 2016-06-02 16:20 -0400

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