8 inch floppy

Started by W. Gray, May 26, 2016, 11:54:34 AM

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W. Gray

From Fox News, this morning:

The Defense Department's Strategic Automated Command and Control System, which is used to send and receive emergency action messages to U.S. nuclear forces. The system is running on a 1970s IBM computing platform, and still uses 8-inch floppy disks to store data. "Replacement parts for the system are difficult to find because they are now obsolete," GAO said. The Pentagon told GAO it is initiating a full replacement and the floppy disks should be gone by the end of next year. The entire upgrade will take longer.


I have seen one 8 inch floppy disk in my life and that was in the very early 80s.

The computer industry went from 8 inch floppies to 5.25 inch floppies to 3.5 inch rigid "floppies" to extinction in favor of USB media.
"If one of the many corrupt...county-seat contests must be taken by way of illustration, the choice of Howard County, Kansas, is ideal." Dr. Everett Dick, The Sod-House Frontier, 1854-1890.
"One of the most expensive county-seat wars in terms of time and money lost..." Dr. Homer E Socolofsky, KSU

Mom70x7

In our process of down-sizing, I've found quite a bit of old computer stuff - including some 5.25 floppies. I still have a reader for the 3.5 that I could probably hook up. If I keep digging, maybe I'll find an 8-inch as well.  :D :D :D

W. Gray

Amazon has a number of usb 3.5 inch disk drives available for around $15 each. The drive is little bigger than the diskette. The diskettes are also available from a number of sources.

Could not find any 5.25 inch drives but one company still has the diskettes for sale.
"If one of the many corrupt...county-seat contests must be taken by way of illustration, the choice of Howard County, Kansas, is ideal." Dr. Everett Dick, The Sod-House Frontier, 1854-1890.
"One of the most expensive county-seat wars in terms of time and money lost..." Dr. Homer E Socolofsky, KSU

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