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[–] 8 points 6 hours ago

Are they finally switching to zip drives now?

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  • [–] 11 points 12 hours ago

    Interesting, didn't know we were like Japan like that

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  • [–] 19 points 15 hours ago (1 child)

    Somebody out there is thinking "why not vibe code it and get it done by AI fast?"

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  • [–] 67 points 22 hours ago (27 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 61 points 21 hours ago

    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.

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  • [–] 18 points 21 hours ago (9 children)

    The floppy disk is 60 years old. In which universe is migrating away from 60-year-old technology "moving fast and breaking stuff"?!

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  • [–] 13 points 19 hours ago (5 children)

    What are they moving to? Because that's what the comment is referencing. The new tech they are moving to, not the old tech.

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  • [–] 4 points 14 hours ago* (4 children)

    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 ?

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  • [–] 2 points 13 hours ago (3 children)

    Why do the banks use COBOL? Why does NASA use FORTRAN?

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  • [–] 3 points 12 hours ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • No, because when infrastructure is sophisticated, critical, and expensive enough, you don't just go around replacing it.

    I bring up Legacy Code for a reason. as one of the few organizations in the world that can spend so many millions of dollars on code that they can virtually guarantee that it's bug free.

    And as for the cobalt code in the banking industry, the entire world could shut down if things went wrong by replacing it.

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  • [–] 14 points 20 hours ago

    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.

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    [–] 9 points 15 hours ago

    Sounds like they actually only entered the 20th century.

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  • [–] 17 points 19 hours ago (5 children)

    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

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  • [–] 2 points 8 hours ago

    It's fairly typical of aviation around the world

    Old is safe, and if it's reliable, why change it?

    We just add new layers on top of the old system

    For the record, whole lot of planes using floppy disks too

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  • [–] 15 points 17 hours ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 13 hours ago

    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.

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  • [–] 39 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

    This is going to devastate the floppy disc industry.

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  • [–] 3 points 15 hours ago (3 children)
  • [–] 5 points 10 hours ago*

    Apparently they believe an unreliable storage medium that hasn't been manufactured in more than twenty years may not be trustworthy enough for a life critical system anymore. That, or finding "new" floppies is more expensive than making the switch...

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