US Military Retires 8-Inch Floppies from Nuclear Launch Control System

[Tsing]

In the event of a crisis, the US Military will no longer receive nuclear launch orders from the president and coordinate attacks using 8-inch floppy disks. The Air Force says it has finally upgraded its Strategic Automated Command and Control System (SACCS) to a “highly-secure solid state digital storage solution."

Floppies were preferable because military experts deemed the ancient, pre-internet storage medium to be unhackable. In fact, many of the younger enlistees had never even seen one. The SACCS, an '70s IBM Series/1 computer, will remain for its reliability.

"I joke with people and say it's the Air Force's oldest IT system. But it's the age that provides that security,” [Lt. Col. Jason] Rossi said in an October interview. "You can't hack something that doesn't have an IP address. It's a very unique system — it is old and it is very good."

 

[Dan_D]

That's one serious jump in technology. I can't believe they used eight inch floppies for so long.

 

[ThreeDee]

I played me a few games on those suckers back in college

 

[AntiQuark]

It reads as though he thinks computers have to be born with network interfaces and IP addresses.
Its easy not to have if thats your security concern.

 

[Zarathustra]

I played me a few games on those suckers back in college

On 8" or on 5.25"?

My first PC used 5.25" floppies. I later upgraded to the 3.5" harder diskettes. I was aware that 8" drives had come before me, but I never actually used one.

 

[Zarathustra]

180kb of pure joy

 

[DrezKill]

I remember using the 5.25" ones both at home and school, but the 8-inchers? Nope, never ever seen or handled any. You don't really know what they're like until you see them in person. Pics don't do the size justice. I need to hold them in my hands. I need to use them in the drives, experience their seek and write times for myself. See what it is like to actually insert and remove them from the drives. The whole experience. Really surprised the military used them for so long.

 

[ThreeDee]

On 8" or on 5.25"?

My first PC used 5.25" floppies. I later upgraded to the 3.5" harder diskettes. I was aware that 8" drives had come before me, but I never actually used one.

ah yeah .. my mistake. 5.25" it was ..

I have a good memory .. it's just awful short

 

[Grog6]

I used to work on word processors that used the 8" floppies back in the 80's.

They were low density, and had to be adjusted by hand so that the head position was the same on multiple machines in the same office; if it was different, then disks wouldn't swap between machines.

Tandon, a subsidiary company, made "Half width" drives, that set up their own tracking; they were in later machines.

https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/content/media/20/407420-small.jpg

This brick weighed about 100lbs; it was 8080 based, with up to 8k of ram.



There's some Shugart tech out there that just lost his job, lol.

Shugart Associates - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[SmokeRngs]

I remember using the 5.25" ones both at home and school, but the 8-inchers? Nope, never ever seen or handled any. You don't really know what they're like until you see them in person. Pics don't do the size justice. I need to hold them in my hands. I need to use them in the drives, experience their seek and write times for myself. See what it is like to actually insert and remove them from the drives. The whole experience. Really surprised the military used them for so long.

I had some 8" floppies back in the 90s. I didn't use them for anything and didn't have a drive for them. A friend gave me a stack for the hell of it. Sadly, they disappeared years ago during one move or another.

Trust me. There is no way you could ever mistake an 8" floppy for a 5.25" floppy. The difference is quite large.