>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
SFMTA's train system running on floppy disks; city fears 'catastrophic failure'
81–90 of 252 posts
Re: SFMTA's train system running on floppy disks; city fears 'catastrophic failure'
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am an elected official (12 years and elected six times in Illinois) unfortunately seeing this process work over 12 years is discouraging. For example President Obama allocated 8 billion dollars for high sped passenger rail service improvements. By 2017 almost 2 billion of this money had been spent on railroad improvements / railroad crossings and line inspections. Fast forward to 2024 no high speed rails have actua…
Wasting money on favored constituents is the point of these projects.
Wasting money on special interests would be more accurate.
Re: SFMTA's train system running on floppy disks; city fears 'catastrophic failure'
#83I 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.
Protected from hackers though!
Re: SFMTA's train system running on floppy disks; city fears 'catastrophic failure'
#84I believe that the article is about this RFP for “Contract No. SFMTA-2022-40 FTA” to upgrade the Communications-Based Train Control System (CBTC) or Advanced Train Control System (ATCS). The resolution to create the RFP for the supplier was approved 2023-01-17 (https://www.sfmta.com/reports/1-17-23-mtab-item-14-communica...), and a $36M resolution to create an RFP for a consultant was approved 2023-11-07 (https://www.sfmta.com/reports/11-7-23-mtab-item-11-train-con...). I’m not sure where the actual RFPs are pubished though.
Re: SFMTA's train system running on floppy disks; city fears 'catastrophic failure'
#85Raspberry pi controller $30, couple of people to make it work - let's say $500k.
Sure... there are loads of things that probably need attention, but maybe you don't need to fix them all at once?
Re: SFMTA's train system running on floppy disks; city fears 'catastrophic failure'
#86Remember when, less than 3 years ago, SF projected a $108M surplus for the next two years? Woulda been a nice time to clean up some of this technical debt! Or how about the SF Emergency Sirens, taken offline in late 2019 for a "2 year" upgrade plan that officeholders implied was already in place? In August 2023, with no progress whatsover, with the Maui fire disaster fresh on their minds, Mayor Breed & Supervisors Pr…
Sirens don't even need to be that complicated. A motor, a noise generator wheel (basically just a big spinning squirrelcage fan), and a horn. You could toggle them on/off with a simple relay/contactor.
Re: SFMTA's train system running on floppy disks; city fears 'catastrophic failure'
#87My 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…
LOL:) this story seems to resurface every couple of years. My favorite part of the article:
"Jeffrey Tumlin: "It's a question of risk. The system is currently working just fine but we know that with each increasing year risk of data degradation on the floppy disks increases and that at some point there will be a catastrophic failure."
This seems to imply they have been using the exact same disk for the past 20 years (absurd), they have absolutely no idea what is written on the disk and how it can be safely backed up or restored. This would be a problem regardless of the medium used.
Although I hold the line at using paper tape there is nothing wrong with using floppies other than it seems antiquated. It certainly is reliable and cheap. Maybe the only thing that needs replacing is the people running the Muni.
Re: SFMTA's train system running on floppy disks; city fears 'catastrophic failure'
#88I 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.
Protected from hackers though!
Unless said hacker has a big magnet.
Re: SFMTA's train system running on floppy disks; city fears 'catastrophic failure'
#89Well... I feel slightly better about Boston constantly pushing back being able to use our phones as tickets after seeing the timeline for the transition and how just that they are still doing this. What is it about public transit in the US that it is so... bad? Inadequate funding seems to be the easy one, but the MBTA (Boston) doesn't even handle the funds it has well. Yeah it needs more funding but there is also jus…
I think there are a bunch of things causing this problem. Off the top of my head, some factors: - chronic underfunding - we all know how problems build up when maintenance is deferred - waterfall planning - Mary Poppendieck has a nice talk on how much trouble this causes: https://www.infoq.com/presentations/tyranny-of-plan/ - political point-scoring - blame-oriented cultures discourage experimentation and incremental…
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Re: SFMTA's train system running on floppy disks; city fears 'catastrophic failure'
#90I 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.
Here is 2017 article from NY to get an idea.