31–40 of 81 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
what's the difference between outdated technology which has never been documented online, and new technology which has never been documented online?
If you're using Windows 10 or MacOS, people know how to find their way around in the absence of documentation. How many people could figure out the command line interface to a 1970s era IBM Series/1 without docs?
Well, does it work? If so then what's the problem?
Who wins by moving to SD?
http://www.gao.gov/assets/680/677454.pdf
Pages 15 to 19 are what the CNBC article picked up on:
This system coordinates the operational functions of the nation’s nuclear forces. This system is running on an IBM Series/1 Computer—a 1970s computing system—and uses 8-inch floppy disks - from page 19
The IBM Series/1 isn't that ancient (well for me anyway) and was comparable to 16 bit Data General (I trained on Data General Nova 3's, 4's and Eclipse S/130's back in the mid-80's) and DEC mini's of the day:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Series/1
As long as you keep up with the usual preventative maintenance (filter changing etc), these old boxes just keep on working. Sometime in the early 2000's a buddy of mine still had a preventative maintenance contract on a DG Nova 3 [0] attached some astronomy kit. John asked if I fancied a day out to see this machine and go along with him on his PM visit. I hadn't seen an old Nova or Eclipse machine since the early 90's, so why the hell not? When I asked why such an old machine (probably manufactured in '75 or '76) hadn't been replaced with a faster smaller box (e.g. top end PC server type of thing), the reason was at the time nothing could come close to the data channel speeds this old box could sustain when collecting data from their astronomy thing.
If anyone from St Andrews astronomy department knows about this old machine I'd love to know what happened to it.
At one time, government engineers were in equal standing with contractor engineers. As defense spending dwindled down after the Vietnam war, defense contractors began to lobby for more control of defense workloads. On a contract, the government engineers would maintain the product and defense contractors did the development. Money set aside for documentation was devoured by the contractors so that only the contractor…
Ideally, they would have even more expertise to make judgement calls, so that they could rely (in some sense) on the spirit of the contract and not just the letter.
I guess comparisons to public sector and military procurement in other countries (and times) might be instructive.
Everyone needs to shut the hell up about nuclear obsolescence. If we can just keep the politicians from noticing the need to "modernize" these terrible weapons, then in a few short decades we will have achieved a de facto global disarmament. Everyone can continue manning their silos filled with stale dud warheads, fingers hovering over buttons that no longer work. We'll have all the stratigic stabilizing influences o…
What's wrong with 8" floppy disks? They seem easy to manufacture (same as a VHS tape but cut differently), are pretty reliable if you keep them away from magnets (Which is common sense), and don't really have a shelf life problem until the plastic gets brittle. Hell, if they degrade, you can even retrieve the undamaged parts with no fuss. Who wins by moving to SD?
It reminds me this story, which was told to me as a true story, but I wouldn't bet too much on that. A soviet bomber gets lost and finds itself over western germany. It has to land on a military airport, which pilots jovially invite the soviet pilots for a drink. While they are drinking, intelligence officers take pictures of the plane, and are laughing at antiquated soviet technology, using bulbs while the US was we…