Earlier quoted context omitted.
>floppy disks are dumb raw media and cannot contain any "hidden" behavior Look up floppy boot sector viruses.
That's not "hidden".
It's right in the first sector, plainly readable.
FAA to eliminate floppy disks used in air traffic control systems
191–197 of 197 posts
Re: FAA to eliminate floppy disks used in air traffic control systems
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
The speed thing was just an example that easily came to mind. I can imagine there are other kinds of analog vs digital interactions that might be occurring that may not be easily replicated under emulation. Especially with a system that grew somewhat organically over the last half-century. Emulation is likely possible, probably for many of the systems involved, but this is not a field where bugs, especially ones intr…
These kinds of risks are always present with anything involved with airplanes. Being terrified of progress means you're likely to kill far more people.
> Being terrified of progress means you're likely to kill far more people.
I'm not really sure what you're arguing for, or against, here. Nobody denies that changes are needed. The hardware is failing and buying new isn't possible to do seamlessly because of the age of the software.
The discussion is whether emulation is a possibility and people are pointing out that this comes with its own risks, so the discussion should centre around whether the cost/risk of emulation is lower than the cost/risk of building completely new systems.
Re: FAA to eliminate floppy disks used in air traffic control systems
#193If it works, then don't change it. I would trust a floppy-powered Windows 95 system over the horror show that passes for common operating systems in 2025. What will they think of next? Adding AI to the ATC system?
Operating systems have gotten a whole lot more reliable since Windows 95. The way I remember it, Windows 98 would regularly corrupt itself and need to be manually reinstalled. I'd done it so many times that I could pretty much recite the license key from memory. Modern Linux is rock solid. Even Windows 10 is very stable. They might be 'bloated', but modern OS's are way, way more stable.
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Re: FAA to eliminate floppy disks used in air traffic control systems
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
These kinds of risks are always present with anything involved with airplanes. Being terrified of progress means you're likely to kill far more people.
> Being terrified of progress means you're likely to kill far more people. I'm not really sure what you're arguing for, or against, here. Nobody denies that changes are needed. The hardware is failing and buying new isn't possible to do seamlessly because of the age of the software. The discussion is whether emulation is a possibility and people are pointing out that this comes with its own risks, so the discussion s…
New things always come with unknown risks.
Re: FAA to eliminate floppy disks used in air traffic control systems
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
I read some years ago - IIRC the letters pages of BYTE, which dates it - about a critical factory control system in a company somewhere running on an IBM XT. The MFM drive had started to show some errors, so they got in touch with IBM, who being IBM, did not have any drives in stock (they'd stopped making them 15 years previously), but could retool a manufacturing line and make some. They offered to do it for $250k/d…
IBM mainframes can run software written in the 1960s without modification. There’s no reason anyone would keep using an obsolete mainframe, and IBM usually leased them anyway and would refuse to support obsoleted machines.
You clearly don’t know what has been happening in the World of S/360 (and similar), support contracts in recent years.
Costs are rising heavily. IBM sold off most of that business, to people who don’t really want it as the skill base to support it is retiring and it’s too expensive to easily replace. This has been going on for a couple of decades, but it’s now gaining more and more pace.
Re: FAA to eliminate floppy disks used in air traffic control systems
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Being terrified of progress means you're likely to kill far more people. I'm not really sure what you're arguing for, or against, here. Nobody denies that changes are needed. The hardware is failing and buying new isn't possible to do seamlessly because of the age of the software. The discussion is whether emulation is a possibility and people are pointing out that this comes with its own risks, so the discussion s…
New things always come with unknown risks.
This is true for emulation and for rebuilding from scratch, so I'm still not sure what you're arguing for or against.