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.
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
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.