The US nuclear forces’ messaging system finally got rid of its floppy disks • Hacker News Board

Re: The US nuclear forces’ messaging system finally got rid of its floppy disks

#81

Post by 2muchcoffeeman » Fri, Oct 18, 2019, 1:07 PM UTC

PietdeVries wrote: post #79

bArray wrote: post #36

I know of several military systems that still use floppy disks, that comforts me for a few reason: * Their maintenance is well understood - every fault that is likely to happen has happened and has been recovered/repaired from. It's very unlikely there will be new surprised down the road. * Their degradation is well understood - it's been around long enough that parts have failed and have been repaired. * Isn't easil…

And the downside: you will only have a few technicians that really understand how things work, hiring new ones is next to impossible as teenagers have never seen neither the hardware nor the software that is running on it. It scales terrible to new locations. I recall a few years ago NASA was looking for 286-processors for the Space Shuttle. I cannot imagine your spacecraft is getting safer because of outdated hardwa…

Older technology is probably much simpler though. It might actually be possible to train someone, or for that someone to learn from a manual.

Re: The US nuclear forces’ messaging system finally got rid of its floppy disks

#82

Post by jki275 » Fri, Oct 18, 2019, 1:09 PM UTC

PietdeVries wrote: post #79

bArray wrote: post #36

I know of several military systems that still use floppy disks, that comforts me for a few reason: * Their maintenance is well understood - every fault that is likely to happen has happened and has been recovered/repaired from. It's very unlikely there will be new surprised down the road. * Their degradation is well understood - it's been around long enough that parts have failed and have been repaired. * Isn't easil…

And the downside: you will only have a few technicians that really understand how things work, hiring new ones is next to impossible as teenagers have never seen neither the hardware nor the software that is running on it. It scales terrible to new locations. I recall a few years ago NASA was looking for 286-processors for the Space Shuttle. I cannot imagine your spacecraft is getting safer because of outdated hardwa…

We teach them every detail of everything they need to know in their technical school when they come into the military.

Old equipment is actually interesting to work on -- difficult, but interesting. It's also very valuable for understanding modern hardware at a deep level that isn't often taught anymore.

How many people do you know who have actually replaced and aligned the heads on a UYH-3 or run end to end tests on serial data channels that traverse thousands of feet and multiple switchboards from a UYK-43?

Re: The US nuclear forces’ messaging system finally got rid of its floppy disks

#83

Post by AnnoyingSwede » Fri, Oct 18, 2019, 1:14 PM UTC

Just getting my amiga/commodore 64 500 3.5/5.25 setups back up and running, 75% of data is demagnetized away. Looking around sourcing any of these formats is more or less impossible today. HOW did they ever managed to keep 8 inch disks in a read and writable stage, without exhausting possible read/re-writes?

Secondly, how does one replace a 8 inch drive (most likely MFM interfaces) with a solid state disk?

Re: The US nuclear forces’ messaging system finally got rid of its floppy disks

#84

Post by danmg » Fri, Oct 18, 2019, 1:32 PM UTC

edejong wrote: post #41

> You can't hack something that doesn't have an IP address. That's a very risky assumption to make. There are many attack vectors besides TCP/IP: social engineering, side-channel attacks, EM pulse, backdoors in ICs...

This guy needs to go back and watch/rewatch wargames.

Re: The US nuclear forces’ messaging system finally got rid of its floppy disks

#85

Post by taborj » Fri, Oct 18, 2019, 2:04 PM UTC

AnnoyingSwede wrote: post #83

Just getting my amiga/commodore 64 500 3.5/5.25 setups back up and running, 75% of data is demagnetized away. Looking around sourcing any of these formats is more or less impossible today. HOW did they ever managed to keep 8 inch disks in a read and writable stage, without exhausting possible read/re-writes? Secondly, how does one replace a 8 inch drive (most likely MFM interfaces) with a solid state disk?

You know how you can buy an SD2IEC device[0] for your C64?

Probably something like that.

[0] https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/SD2IEC

Re: The US nuclear forces’ messaging system finally got rid of its floppy disks

#86

Post by taborj » Fri, Oct 18, 2019, 2:10 PM UTC

benj111 wrote: post #35

" Air Force software development hubs like Boston-based Kessel Run or Los Angeles-based Kobayashi Maru" Is this article a troll, or is the Air Force just trying to be 'cool'.

You might be interested to know that they also nicknamed Rainbow Canyon as "Star Wars Canyon", and the various branches fly their jets through at high speed for training purposes.[0]

In other words, the Air Force (and other branches) can, indeed, be "cool."

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0NHXiB-R58

Re: The US nuclear forces’ messaging system finally got rid of its floppy disks

#87

Post by overcast » Fri, Oct 18, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

PietdeVries wrote: post #79

bArray wrote: post #36

I know of several military systems that still use floppy disks, that comforts me for a few reason: * Their maintenance is well understood - every fault that is likely to happen has happened and has been recovered/repaired from. It's very unlikely there will be new surprised down the road. * Their degradation is well understood - it's been around long enough that parts have failed and have been repaired. * Isn't easil…

And the downside: you will only have a few technicians that really understand how things work, hiring new ones is next to impossible as teenagers have never seen neither the hardware nor the software that is running on it. It scales terrible to new locations. I recall a few years ago NASA was looking for 286-processors for the Space Shuttle. I cannot imagine your spacecraft is getting safer because of outdated hardwa…

Since human knowledge isn't passed down through genetics, people generally don't know about something, until they have worked with it. That's what education is for, whether it's on their own or formally in a class room. I assume anyone being groomed for these positions, learns it like any other trade.

Re: The US nuclear forces’ messaging system finally got rid of its floppy disks

#88

Post by magduf » Fri, Oct 18, 2019, 2:18 PM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #10

> While SACC’s hardware is decades old, its software is constantly refreshed by young Air Force programmers who learn software development skills at Offutt’s Rapid Agile Development Lab. I am not so sure I want “Rapid Agile” development for something that literally controls nuclear missiles.

Don't be ridiculous. Our nuclear missile launch systems need to be redeveloped with Rapid Agile methodology, and using all the latest Javascript frameworks, MongoDB databases, Kubernetes microservices, and a great web interface that can be easily accessed over the internet.

Re: The US nuclear forces’ messaging system finally got rid of its floppy disks

#89

Post by phaedrus » Fri, Oct 18, 2019, 2:23 PM UTC

PietdeVries wrote: post #79

bArray wrote: post #36

I know of several military systems that still use floppy disks, that comforts me for a few reason: * Their maintenance is well understood - every fault that is likely to happen has happened and has been recovered/repaired from. It's very unlikely there will be new surprised down the road. * Their degradation is well understood - it's been around long enough that parts have failed and have been repaired. * Isn't easil…

And the downside: you will only have a few technicians that really understand how things work, hiring new ones is next to impossible as teenagers have never seen neither the hardware nor the software that is running on it. It scales terrible to new locations. I recall a few years ago NASA was looking for 286-processors for the Space Shuttle. I cannot imagine your spacecraft is getting safer because of outdated hardwa…

They must have either bought too many or excessed some chips that didn't test perfect, because when I did my NASA internship around 2007-08 an electronic's surplus store in Houston had boxes of 8086 chips, 8088's as well. I still have a couple I bought with the intention of making some hobby SBC's (single board computers).

Re: The US nuclear forces’ messaging system finally got rid of its floppy disks

#90

Post by magduf » Fri, Oct 18, 2019, 2:25 PM UTC

einr wrote: post #24

madengr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CD-R are maybe 10 years. Floppies are more reliable. I have plenty of C64 and Apple II floppies that work fine.

Floppies are more reliable. I have plenty of C64 and Apple II floppies that work fine. 5,25" floppies (especially lower density variants like the ones you mention) are quite reliable indeed, but the most recently common 1.44 MB 3,5" floppy is terrible .

Nope, when I was using 1.44MB floppies, they were extremely reliable.

However, after most people had moved on, when I did use more recently-manufactured ones, they were indeed terrible.

My theory is that, when Zip disks and CD-Rs took over and people stopped using 1.44MB floppies, the manufacturing of them changed, and both the disks and the drives became much crappier than they used to be. The drive manufacturing moved from Japan to Thailand, for instance, for some of the drives I looked at, and the components were noticeably crappier (drive motors much smaller, for instance). These were the days when every PC had a 1.44MB drive just for Windows XP drivers, and no one ever used the drive for anything else because it was just too small, so the OEMs really cut back on the quality since the drives weren't expected to be used much.

But back in the early 90s, it wasn't like that; those disks were totally bulletproof, just like all the other floppies.