121–130 of 252 posts
"it was from an era that computers didn't have a hard drive"
Absolute BS. Pretty much every computer had a hard drive in 1998, and most had CD-ROM.
Then they referred to the 3.5" disk as a "5-inch floppy."
>Turns out that in 1998, SFMTA had the latest cutting edge technology when they installed their automatic train control system. > "We were the first agency in the U.S. to adopt this particular technology but it was from an era that computers didn't have a hard drive so you have to load the software from floppy disks on to the computer," In 1998, most personal computers already had hard drives [0]. From Wikipedia "The…
Why would a hard drive be better? If the floppy fails just grab another off the shelf and try it (surely they have more than one copy). Downtime measured in seconds. The other good thing about the floppy is it can't hold very much code. So the system has a tight upper bound on how bloated and complex it can get. Simpler systems are more maintainable. These things seem like great assets for maintaining critical infras…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Transit employees are not the same people as, nor have the same motivations as the politicians who manage transport agencies. Of course the employees work hard. It’s the vocation they’ve chosen. I’m always amazed by the diligence of TFL and rail employees in the U.K., for instance. No, the guiding principle for the folks at the top is “so, how can I make money for myself out of this before I fail upwards?”. I’d wager…
> No, the guiding principle for the folks at the top is “so, how can I make money for myself out of this before I fail upwards?”. Who are "the folks at the top"? Transit agency executives in California make less than software engineers (though if you put in your time, you get a nice pension to make up for it) - how are these people getting rich? If you mean the politicians, sure, I've already said they're half the pr…
These people are around in SF - see Mohammed Nuru, Rodrigo Santos and so on.
>Turns out that in 1998, SFMTA had the latest cutting edge technology when they installed their automatic train control system. > "We were the first agency in the U.S. to adopt this particular technology but it was from an era that computers didn't have a hard drive so you have to load the software from floppy disks on to the computer," In 1998, most personal computers already had hard drives [0]. From Wikipedia "The…
Why do I have to do this research instead of the "journalist"? Ratchet the snark back. The journalist was referring to the train control system not home computers in someone's basement. And, yes, twenty five years ago SelTrac was cutting edge. Moving block systems were basically unheard of back then.
He pointed out glaring factual errors in the story, which should not have made it through any kind of editorial review. For example: 25 years ago pretty much every computer had a hard drive. And the disk depicted in the article is obviously a 3.5", not a "five-inch floppy."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure moving it back a whole decade saves them? My family's first PC in 1987 had a hard disk. The Wikipedia quote they provide lines up with that, and provides a more authoritative point of when it was introduced. And yeah, the "5 inch floppy" quote paired with a photo of a diskette. God only knows what actual hardware the system uses. But point being … the journalist doesn't seem to have found out.
There's a big difference when choosing technologies for a home computer versus a safety-critical system that will run for decades. Seems reasonable they would've chosen a proven, if slightly outdated, tech over a newer one that had less data to back up its long-term reliability. And of course we can get into the discussion of cost: floppies are way cheaper than hard drives, especially for the presumably-small amounts…
I emailed them. I live I'm SF. This is the sake, solved, problem we have in the machine tool world (milling machines, lathes, etc). Similar to old keyboards, you can just buy and use a floppy emulator. They emailed me back, they said that the floppy thing makes a good headline but is really just the tip of the iceberg. It's really the whole system that's like this at every layer, it needs replacing they say.
> it needs replacing they say. It sounds like they let this problem fester until it has reached this existential end. They clamor for new technology, which they get, then they use the most risk adverse management strategy and never upgrade or change it, until it reaches this problem state. They either need significant third party help deploying and managing this system, or they should go back a few generations of tec…
My company provides new compute modules for another major global city's infrastructure that still relies on Intel CPU's from the early 80's. That is, we are building them brand new boards populated with chips that are over 40 years old. They haven't shown any interest in updating the system. It works, they can get service, and get "new" replacements for things that go bad. What they might not know though is that ther…
Are you hiring young engineers who want to learn the old stuff?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it needs replacing they say. It sounds like they let this problem fester until it has reached this existential end. They clamor for new technology, which they get, then they use the most risk adverse management strategy and never upgrade or change it, until it reaches this problem state. They either need significant third party help deploying and managing this system, or they should go back a few generations of tec…
The problem is "lower my taxes" single issue voters. People vote for whomever lowers taxes and then complain about potholes. It's always the same people. GOVERNMENT IS INCOMPETENT BLAH BLAH. Yeah, cause you refuse to fund it and everything goes to shit, then is 10x more expensive to fix it compared to properly funding maintenance. You end up paying more in the end because these people can't see past the couple hundre…
>SFMTA's train control system relies every morning on 5 inch floppy disks. That's not the 3.5" floppy disk in the video. This is the old floppy disks[1] 1. https://www.digitaltreasures.ca/img/level2_floppy_525.jpg
The OG floppy disks were 8 inches, though, 5 inch floppies were the small ones (hence why 3.5" disks were "microfloppies"):
https://images.techhive.com/images/article/2015/12/floppy_di...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Transit employees are not the same people as, nor have the same motivations as the politicians who manage transport agencies. Of course the employees work hard. It’s the vocation they’ve chosen. I’m always amazed by the diligence of TFL and rail employees in the U.K., for instance. No, the guiding principle for the folks at the top is “so, how can I make money for myself out of this before I fail upwards?”. I’d wager…
> No, the guiding principle for the folks at the top is “so, how can I make money for myself out of this before I fail upwards?”. Who are "the folks at the top"? Transit agency executives in California make less than software engineers (though if you put in your time, you get a nice pension to make up for it) - how are these people getting rich? If you mean the politicians, sure, I've already said they're half the pr…
