US stopped using floppy disks to manage nuclear weapons arsenal

So, in my state, I was shocked several months ago during a system wide audit when I saw equipment purchases for microfiche readers out of a company in Russia.

Excuse me?

Seems that DHHS still uses them to store/retrieve files.

Geez people, welcome to the 2020's......

Fred..

"Remember kids, Don't copy that floppy"

I remember when 386 went to 486 chips

Pakard bell made 1000's of 386 motherboards, so they just put a 486 chip on the 386 motherboard.

No one but techs new the difference even though the thru put was halve what a 486 chip could do.

I sold a bunch of them at Sears in 92-93 at about a 1000$ each. I used to install after market CD players in 93 too.

in those days it was said "the difference between a computer salesman and used car salesman was a car salesman knew when he was lying"

a reply to: LookingAtMars

Are they still using 00000000 as a launch code for the Minuteman missiles

Asking for a friend

a reply to: thedigirati

Ah.... Packard Hell. I loved how they sold proprietary motherboards that needed an adapter to fit the other cards, so if you lost the first 64k of memory, which was not unheard of, you had to replace the motherboard and the case.

Ah memories to say the least. I can remember when that 3.5 inch floppy came out and thinking wow!!!!! Or a 32 mb hard drive the size of a shoebox.......

My computer progression: Apple II, TRS-80, Atari 800, 286, 386, 486 DX50, Pentium, various forms of pentium, then 2 Imac's

Back to the floppy discs. One of the reasons the military sticks to older equipment is that it is made to pretty unique requirements like say EMP proof or radiation hardened etc. Thats why you see older chips on say spacecraft. Also if your dealing with something like a thermonuclear weapon you want to make sure that all systems used have fail safes. The floppy system was proven and secure so why change

a reply to: stonerwilliam

That was changed...🤣

originally posted by: AnonymousCitizen

originally posted by: interupt42
a reply to: LookingAtMars

I wouldn't be surprised if you found a trx-80 somewhere intentionally being used.

I think you might mean TRS-80. That was my first computer.

You're lucky. I wanted one so bad. All I could afford was a TI 99/4.

I worked for DEC in the 70's and currently own a PDP-11.
It boots off punched paper tape. Only then can it see the huge floppies....


Back then, you could buy a bootstrap board as an option for a few thousand bucks. It had the bootstrap code in a matrix of diodes, hand soldered, that were oriented 0/1 , arranged in the machine code of the bootstrap program. Saved a lot of time.

Worth a watch.

a reply to: MisterSpock