Update Complete: U.S. Nuclear Weapons No Longer Need Floppy Disks

Re:Update Complete: U.S. Nuclear Weapons No Longer Need Flop... by lallysingh on Friday August 18, 2023 @10:21AM (#37176012)

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

Sounds like flash drives. Perhaps even USB.

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Re:Update Complete: U.S. Nuclear Weapons No Longer Need Flop... by kirse on Friday August 18, 2023 @10:38AM (#37176274)

Pretty sure they went with the higher capacity Iomega Zip Drives.

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Re:Update Complete: U.S. Nuclear Weapons No Longer Need Flop... by brudgers on Friday August 18, 2023 @01:06PM (#37178695)

SmartMedia...5 volt.

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Re:Update Complete: U.S. Nuclear Weapons No Longer Need Flop... by Jeraimee on Friday August 18, 2023 @01:30PM (#37179132)

Someone has to stand a foot away to catch the disk as its hurled out when ejected.

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Re:Update Complete: U.S. Nuclear Weapons No Longer Need Flop... by fjd on Friday August 18, 2023 @10:52PM (#37185009)

So funny enough, I checked and those are actually still for sale brand new. I feel old.

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Re:Update Complete: U.S. Nuclear Weapons No Longer Need Flop... by bcx5k15 on Friday August 18, 2023 @10:53AM (#37176499)

> secure solid-state

Or a CD

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Re:Update Complete: U.S. Nuclear Weapons No Longer Need Flop... by tyingq on Friday August 18, 2023 @10:57AM (#37176571)

The sources I could find say that they didn't replace the computers accessing the data. They are still IBM Series/1 [1] machines. So whatever is being used, there has to be some kind of floppy (or tape, etc) emulator in front of it.

It's likely the floppy drive in question was an IBM 23FD "Minnow"[2]. The capacity and timeframe matches up.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Series/1

[2] https://historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=885

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Re:Update Complete: U.S. Nuclear Weapons No Longer Need Flop... by uni_rule on Friday August 18, 2023 @12:17PM (#37177836)

The US military after using 37 different shell companies to purchase hundreds of gotek floppy emulators and 5.25" to 3.5" drive brackets:

> Damn I'm good at modernization

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Re:Update Complete: U.S. Nuclear Weapons No Longer Need Flop... by tyingq on Friday August 18, 2023 @02:22PM (#37179939)

Well, they will also need 8" to 5.25".

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Re:Update Complete: U.S. Nuclear Weapons No Longer Need Flop... by briffle on Friday August 18, 2023 @12:18PM (#37177847)

those were 16-bit machines so perhaps they have to find aging flash drives smaller than 2GB?

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Re:Update Complete: U.S. Nuclear Weapons No Longer Need Flop... by matja on Friday August 18, 2023 @01:38PM (#37179277)

EPROMs, and the UV lamp is locked in a cupboard with a highly secure combination lock

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