FAA Begins Retiring Decades Old Floppy Disks from Air Traffic Control

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.

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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.

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