Interesting, didn’t know we were like Japan like that
Somebody out there is thinking “why not vibe code it and get it done by AI fast?”
I’m sorry, what?
You need a computer to do a thing, ALL you want is the command prompt and thing doing.exe
Can’t hack a floppy disk remotely, it’s the OG air gap
Sounds like they actually only entered the 20th century.
Other countries would be horrified to hear that critical infrastructure had been so neglected, but this is just another day in the US of fucking A
There was actually a benefit to being behind the curve on this.
The scheduling is done on modern machines, the actual flight control console is a glorified comms station with a very beefy audio recorder.
It’s built to last, and to be as reliable as possible, while still being repairable by a skilled technician.
Any update needs to be as solid and reliable as what it replaces. That’s the key, not being advanced or some shit.
ICAO world is behind the curve yeah but not a century behind.
OPS tech is old protocols like X25 and X400 but on IP, not on serial cables and switches.
Networks are using fiber channels, servers are using VMs, kubernetes clusters and stuff like that. It’s old tech on modern hardware. Even the voice coms went full VOIP (at least for gnd-gnd com) during the last decade.
Yes we stay behind the tech curve on purpose, but FAA lagging so much behind the rest of the world is just another proof of their lack of investment.
Booo
Old tech is solid and reliable. Do you really want the modern tech ethos of “move fast and break stuff” to apply to Air Traffic Control? I wouldn’t trust the big tech companies to write software for red-lights without killing people.
Old tech still requires maintenance and replacement parts. This tech is so old that they can’t effectively provide either. I 100% agree with you that you don’t want to “move fast and break things” but there does need to be a program to upgrade over time to deal with the maintenance and replacement problems, as well as improve capabilities and safety. The fact that some ATC systems completely crashed in recent months, leaving air traffic in a very dangerous state, is evidence of this problem.
Sorry but ‘Floppy’ and ‘reliable’ in the same sentence… is odd.
The floppy disk is 60 years old. In which universe is migrating away from 60-year-old technology “moving fast and breaking stuff”?!
What are they moving to? Because that’s what the comment is referencing. The new tech they are moving to, not the old tech.
I know it’s a rethorical question but from what I’ve seen they updated their “information display”.
In my country our equivalent is an in-house Java software running on Linux thin clients. The software basically shows meteorological information, runways status, airspace status and stuff like that, so it is connected to a network in order to receive those informations.
So I’m wondering why FAA used the floppy disks? Was it to update the information? MET is updated every 30 minutes, day and night. That’s a handful of manual updates to do…
PS: Their brand new "Enterprise Information Display System (E-IDS)” is what we do in Europe since, uhh, 30 years ?
Why do the banks use COBOL? Why does NASA use FORTRAN?
Because they didn’t upgrade their systems in time while deep knowledge of these systems were intact and would have made upgrading seamlessly much easier. Now they have black boxes that no one truly understands anymore, so they’re paralyzed by fear and that’s what’s keeping them trapped in these old systems.
It’s not so much that new tech is bad … new tech could be made to be ten times safer than what we have now.
The problem is that the new tech is controlled by psychopaths who want to squeeze as much profit out of everything imaginable … imagine all that new tech controlling air traffic but its all locked up by proprietary software that would hold entire airports, agencies and governments hostage, or be made available to the highest bidder and even for international opponents or enemies … and all of it up for grabs for profit and regardless of morals, ethics or human decency.
Floppy discs reliable? I remember mine not working if I transported them in my backpack when it was cold outside. They came back to life when “thawed”, but I’d prefer airliners use something better!
Clay slates have rather modest data density, but reliability is top.
These don’t get transported like that. We’re talking climate control and backups and so on. It’s reliable because the failure rates and causes are known and accounted for.
This is going to devastate the floppy disc industry.
I don’t trust it happening well under Trump so I’m going to take this as a sign to be prepared for far more crashes in the next two years.
More and more I’m thinking if I need to travel, I’ll walk.
Holy smokes, I thought Cobol was archaic
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
That kind of bullshit thinking is why I have to do shitty half-assed solutions because I need to work around unsupported equipment that’s 50 years old and was EOL’ed three decades ago. At some point you absolutely should upgrade even if it isn’t broken.
Lol I use software every day that was written in COBOL. It would cost billions to replace. So leadership never wants to add that expense to their budget so they just hobble along and leave it for the next people.
I’m pretty sure the software I use for work is written in COBOL too, but they’re currently in a multi-year rollout of a modern replacement. So that’s good, I guess.
