FAA Begins Retiring Decades Old Floppy Disks from Air Traffic Control

Re:FAA Begins Retiring Decades Old Floppy Disks from Air Tra... by genxy on Friday November 06, 2026 @12:28PM (#50395414)

Do they? or is it low quality media? Rather than judging old tech bad, new tech good we should look at the requirements and tradeoffs. The failure modes of the new replacement system look more catastrophic to me, relying on cloud infra and internet links.

I can't find information about how the disks are used specifically, how often they are read, written, what data they are used for, if they can be replaced by floppy emulators, etc.

12 billion for a new system that might not actually be an improvement is a lot of money.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:FAA Begins Retiring Decades Old Floppy Disks from Air Tra... by charlieyu1 on Friday November 06, 2026 @01:26PM (#50396249)

I was told some 30 years ago that floppy disks only last for a couple of years

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:FAA Begins Retiring Decades Old Floppy Disks from Air Tra... by addaon on Friday November 06, 2026 @01:55PM (#50396685)

I have some 3.5" floppy disks in the bench seat of the electric organ that came with my house that are at least that old... the three I tried worked without issue. Small sample size, but it suggests a half-life way over a couple of years; I can't imagine this system has unusually robust error correction or anything.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:FAA Begins Retiring Decades Old Floppy Disks from Air Tra... by ____tom____ on Friday November 06, 2026 @03:58PM (#50398434)

I recently tried to copy over an old box of floppies from the 80s and 90s. I'd say 80-90% success rate.

Floppies aren't a bad technology, but they do have limits.

I doubt that SD cards will last that long.

[ Parent | on HN ]