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Boeing 747s receive software updates over floppy disks

theregister.com

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Re: Boeing 747s receive software updates over floppy disks

#81

Post by jobigoud »

alfalfasprout wrote: post #54
reaperducer wrote: post #30

Did it work? Yes. Was it secure? Yes. So, what's the problem? Updating 30-year-old gear with media from its era seems to make sense. If they were really wedded to digital media and needed to bridge that gap, Sony used to make a floppy disk that you could jam a memory stick into and it would read in a normal 3½ inch floppy drive. Very cool gadget.

Frankly, provided you have error checking logic and don't store them next to a magnet... floppy disks are pretty damn bulletproof. I've had way more issues per-use reading a thumb drive or a CD/DVD-ROM than I ever did reading floppy disks.

Per use maybe but what about per byte?

Re: Boeing 747s receive software updates over floppy disks

#82

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

justapassenger wrote: post #28
ir77 wrote: post #12

i'm surprised that people are surprised by this. i work for aerospace, and this is fairly typical -- albeit not floppy disk examples, but we keep a bunch of old laptops running win 7 and other examples around, hound around for them and spare parts. these machines are off the network, etc. these systems were developed 20+ years ago and per contract the a manufacture is obligated to maintain them for the service life,…

I worry how companies will be able to provide similar services in the future, as more and more stuff is running as services in the cloud. It’ll most likely become more and more costly, as you won’t be able to buy offline version of some complement, and keep it working on your support device for 30 years. You’ll need to build all of them yourself. And that will also most likely mean it’ll be less reliable.

Then you "just" don't use those services. It's not rocket science ...ok sometimes it literally is... but part of reliability engineering is knowing where your weak points are and preventing them from causing problems before it happens. Since the default state is building it yourself, not being able to buy an offline version of the service is no less reliable than the alternative.

Re: Boeing 747s receive software updates over floppy disks

#83

Post by justapassenger »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #82
justapassenger wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worry how companies will be able to provide similar services in the future, as more and more stuff is running as services in the cloud. It’ll most likely become more and more costly, as you won’t be able to buy offline version of some complement, and keep it working on your support device for 30 years. You’ll need to build all of them yourself. And that will also most likely mean it’ll be less reliable.

Then you "just" don't use those services. It's not rocket science ...ok sometimes it literally is... but part of reliability engineering is knowing where your weak points are and preventing them from causing problems before it happens. Since the default state is building it yourself, not being able to buy an offline version of the service is no less reliable than the alternative.

Default state is never building it yourself. When you approach new problem, you don't go "ok, let's first start a fire, then melt some silicon to build me some transistors". You always start based on something. And as more stuff is moving to be cloud based services, you'll need to build more and more of that stuff yourself.

Taking it to the extreme - will CPUs in 30 years be cloud connected and require my service provider to work? Would OS be? Or scheduler? Or terminal? Or dynamic linker for libraries? Or IPC framework?

How much of that stuff will companies need to build in the future themselves? It's not like software will get simpler, so they won't need it.

Re: Boeing 747s receive software updates over floppy disks

#84

Post by sterlind »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #80
virtue3 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The jerks always say that it will be 'temporary' and we can redo it later. HAH

This is why at my last job we had a rule that said prototypes could not be shipped as production software. It had to be either completely rewritten, or at least completely code reviewed and the "bad" parts rewritten.

I approach this by writing exploratory prototypes with good modular boundaries, but stub/hacky implementations. Keeping it simple lets me throw modules away as I refactor, until everything's been rewritten and then I ship it.

Re: Boeing 747s receive software updates over floppy disks

#85

Post by lizknope »

hinkley wrote: post #79
notjustanymike wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a stack of 20 floppies Well now I'm having flashbacks of installing "Strike Commander".

I got so much exercise trying to install Slackware from >20 floppies. Disk 5 has read errors. go copy another, start over from disk 1 . Disk 8 has a read error. (By the time I was done I didn't have enough disks, so I had to go to the lab in the middle)

I installed Slackware 2.1 with kernel 1.1.59 in the fall of 1994.

I only had about 15 floppies between me and my roommate. I remember getting the "a" series of disks and then the "d" series for development and so on. I had to run back and forth to the computer lab about 5 times over the weekend.

Re: Boeing 747s receive software updates over floppy disks

#86

Post by grishka »

dis-sys wrote: post #6

US nuclear weapons relied on 8 inch floppy disks until 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/us/nuclear-weapons-floppy...

> The Air Force completed a replacement of the aging SACCS floppy drives with a highly secure solid-state digital storage solution in June

So probably an SD card adapter.

Re: Boeing 747s receive software updates over floppy disks

#87

Post by devenblake »

reaperducer wrote: post #30

Did it work? Yes. Was it secure? Yes. So, what's the problem? Updating 30-year-old gear with media from its era seems to make sense. If they were really wedded to digital media and needed to bridge that gap, Sony used to make a floppy disk that you could jam a memory stick into and it would read in a normal 3½ inch floppy drive. Very cool gadget.

The Memory Stick to 3.5" floppy adapter required a driver iirc, it wasn't plug & play.

Re: Boeing 747s receive software updates over floppy disks

#88

Post by smoe »

ir77 wrote: post #12

i'm surprised that people are surprised by this. i work for aerospace, and this is fairly typical -- albeit not floppy disk examples, but we keep a bunch of old laptops running win 7 and other examples around, hound around for them and spare parts. these machines are off the network, etc. these systems were developed 20+ years ago and per contract the a manufacture is obligated to maintain them for the service life,…

Wouldn't modernizing things here and there not also mean that at some point the entire airplane has to go trough the approval processes again because it is now no longer considered a 747 which in turn also means all personnel need to be certified for the new type?

I once heard, that is the reason why many airplanes still have a "no smoking" light switch in the cockpit although it does not do anything anymore.

Re: Boeing 747s receive software updates over floppy disks

#89

Post by Tempest1981 »

alfalfasprout wrote: post #54
reaperducer wrote: post #30

Did it work? Yes. Was it secure? Yes. So, what's the problem? Updating 30-year-old gear with media from its era seems to make sense. If they were really wedded to digital media and needed to bridge that gap, Sony used to make a floppy disk that you could jam a memory stick into and it would read in a normal 3½ inch floppy drive. Very cool gadget.

Frankly, provided you have error checking logic and don't store them next to a magnet... floppy disks are pretty damn bulletproof. I've had way more issues per-use reading a thumb drive or a CD/DVD-ROM than I ever did reading floppy disks.

I found a box of old floppies... the media had become unglued from the metal center ring. Maybe other brands use better glue to make them bulletproof, these were not.

Re: Boeing 747s receive software updates over floppy disks

#90

Post by commonturtle »

Only slightly surprised; domains where failure is really expensive aren't likely to experiment with technologies. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I read something similar about the computers that control the US nuclear arsenal: They're extremely primitive and can only be updated by floppy disks.

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