If the last one is true, devs take note. If FAA can rely on slow, small storage for safety critical applications, you probably can reduce the resource requirements for your app and improve your customers’ experience and extend the life of their hardware.
FAA Begins Retiring Decades Old Floppy Disks from Air Traffic Control (faa.gov)
32 pointsby pseudolusan hour ago23 comments
jonhohle 21 minutes ago
More information needed. Was this a sneakernet? No one thought of replacing with a floppy emulator and SD cards? All of the data can fit into 1.44MB?
shermantanktop 5 minutes ago
> devs take note
There’s been an incredible expansion of computer hardware and networking in every dimension since the heyday of the floppy. And the floppy itself was a huge step up from technology of even a few years prior.
Your comment could have been made in any year since 1950, and it would have been both correct and irrelevant outside the areas most resistant to hardware upgrades. FAA is conservative, and should be, but the rest of us have supercomputers in our pockets.
Have software developers abused the hardware capabilities they have been granted? Of course they have. I’d love to see some care put into that. But beyond the basics, hand-twiddled hyperoptimizations are now an exercise for craftspeople. Or…AI?
ethin 14 minutes ago
I have a bad feeling that this is not going to end well. Especially given that this administration is... Rather incompetent. I hope that safety is like number one on their list of priorities but somehow I doubt it
readthenotes1 4 minutes ago
I agree, nothing says poor priorities like upgrading the air traffic control system. It removes the opportunity for graft, only supports the monied elite who can afford to fly and don't care about climate change, and diminishes the opportunities for crises to exploit.
Instead, the United States government should have continued the policies and values that led to Next Gen, ERAM, STARS, and AAS.
alex_suzuki 42 minutes ago
> replacing outdated floppy disks that contain vital weather and other critical information with a streamlined, 21st-century system
What does this even… mean?
philipwhiuk 31 minutes ago
alex_suzuki 13 minutes ago
Twin towers spotted
whynotmaybe 27 minutes ago
Micro-services with docker running out of a kubernetes compliant blockchain with somewhere some "AI" added in the mix. I guess this news is more for PR than anything else because I don't see how the replacement of 69% of copper wire is meaningful in any way. What copper wires? Where? Is it because you removed landlines and replaced with voip?
greenavocado 23 minutes ago
Probably something something fiber optic
tencentshill an hour ago
I don't want the FAA to make changes at "lightning speed" or "rapidly moving to make upgrades" or "record pace". Safety must be further down the list for these guys.
p-e-w 39 minutes ago
Using outdated computer systems with aging storage media is a safety issue.
ale42 30 minutes ago
Replacing them with cloud-based systems (if this is the "streamlined, 21st-century system") is a safety issue as well. I hope they are not.
creatonez 24 minutes ago
Just turn WinRAR error correction up to max /s
1970-01-01 17 minutes ago
No, it isn't. This is time tested process. Find me any flight that had to land or crashed because the floppy disk was broken.
alt227 11 minutes ago
> The greatest nation in the world deserves a state-of-the-art air traffic control system, and under President Trump, we’re delivering just that
They are signalling Trumps involvement so I will assume it must be another vanity project he wants to stamp his name on. I look forward to hundreds of grounded planes due to cloud based weather reporting not being available because of a borked server update or misconfigured wifi adapter.
creaturemachine 8 minutes ago
They'll just switch to gold floppies
InsidiousWombat 28 minutes ago
hopefully not with pendrives
superxpro12 32 minutes ago
why is this "historic"? the thirst for this admin to use the most bombastic language possible is so tiring.
Just... modernize the thing already. thats your job. It's not impressive that you did this. You're supposed to do this. You dont get extra kudos for doing the thing you signed up to do...
and dont forget to put Trump's name at the beginning. Or he might get cranky
tokai 27 minutes ago
You could call it histrionic.
njovin 26 minutes ago
Everything they try to spin positively has to be 'historic' because:
1. The party leader is a fragile, dying narcissist who is desperate for his name to be attached to anything other than the misery he's inflicted upon the world.
2. Their _actual_ historic achievements are all war crimes, human rights violations, and policy changes that would terrify their average supporter if they actually understood the long-term consequences.
TedDoesntTalk 17 minutes ago
It’s historic because no else has done it in the last 40+ years. Doesn’t make it a big deal, but it’s still a big change.
readthenotes1 3 minutes ago
It is a big deal if you fly :)
The inability to keep the air traffic control system effective and maintainable is far more embarrassing than the inability to update the IRS software or build a high-speed rail.
Bluestein 24 minutes ago
Out with FDD, in with GPT! (!)