Thursday, May 26, 2016

U.S. nuke program runs on floppies

 
Nukes are a "Cold War" weapon that evolved out of the conflicts of World War II now. So, though people still take them seriously everyone knows to actually use them would end the earth and all upon it. No one but crazy terrorists want to do that. So, this is why nuclear stuff is obsolescent now.

 begin quote from:

U.S. nuke program runs on floppies

The U.S. is still using floppy disks to run its nuclear program

By James Griffiths, CNN
Updated 8:41 AM ET, Thu May 26, 2016

(CNN)Want to launch a nuclear missile? You'll need a floppy disk.
That's according to a new report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), which found that the Pentagon was still using 1970s-era computing systems that require "eight-inch floppy disks."
Gadgets that have gone the way of the dinosaurs
10 photos: Gadget graveyard
The clunky plastic cassettes would sometimes tangle in the machine and, over time, stretch to produce warped purple colors on the TV. But boy, did we love VCRs and video nights. And boy, did we hate programming them.
The Walkman gave a valid excuse to shut out parents, oncoming traffic and most forms of social interaction. Various models included a waterproof Walkman, graphic equalizer, LCD radio screens, Mega Bass and, in original versions, two headphone jacks. The greatest invention since the Walkman -- and possibly sliced bread -- remains auto-reverse, saving users the hassle of having to eject and flip the cassette over.
The MiniDisc was something of a hybrid of small CD and plastic cassette. Journos loved them, particularly if you worked in radio as editing was a breeze. These durable gadgets took up little space and were anti-skip, unlike (pre-memory) CD players. Per the original Walkman, it was a Sony product. The company laid the MD to rest earlier this year.
Stalwarts of the LaserDisc player maintain the format offered higher-quality video and audio than the videocassette. But then the DVD came along.
Atari brought the first in-home console to market during the 1970s with the addictive "Pong" and "Centipede." But Atari went from high score to game over, when it filed for bankruptcy in January this year. The rise of gaming on PCs and mobile devices has impacted the console videogame industry.
Eight-inch floppy discs became commercially available in the 1970s. They allowed up to 1.2 megabytes of storage capacity. Today, a flash drive can hold up to 1 terabyte and comes in all sorts of practical novelty designs.
Long before there was Instagram, Polaroid was king. The Polaroid celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2012. But by then most of us had no more need to ever shake a Polaroid picture again. Not entirely resurrected, Polaroids are retro-cool and often pop up at weddings and other celebrations.
CDs and Discmans may have fallen out of favor in the iTunes world, but creative minds always find new uses for the reflective music carriers.
People slapped these suckers on their hips, feeling important whenever they beeped or vibrated. Then they'd frantically have to find a few coins to use a payphone. The RIM 850 (before it was called BlackBerry) pager could send messages and emails but never nailed the art of the selfie.
The pocket PC and Palm Pilot brought your calendars, addresses, contacts and a calculator into one handy dandy tool instead of hand-scrawled notebooks. Downsides apart from the original green screen? They couldn't make calls. Worse than that, the pen/pencil/stylus/thingy would always vanish.
The clunky plastic cassettes would sometimes tangle in the machine and, over time, stretch to produce warped purple colors on the TV. But boy, did we love VCRs and video nights. And boy, did we hate programming them.
The Walkman gave a valid excuse to shut out parents, oncoming traffic and most forms of social interaction. Various models included a waterproof Walkman, graphic equalizer, LCD radio screens, Mega Bass and, in original versions, two headphone jacks. The greatest invention since the Walkman -- and possibly sliced bread -- remains auto-reverse, saving users the hassle of having to eject and flip the cassette over.
The MiniDisc was something of a hybrid of small CD and plastic cassette. Journos loved them, particularly if you worked in radio as editing was a breeze. These durable gadgets took up little space and were anti-skip, unlike (pre-memory) CD players. Per the original Walkman, it was a Sony product. The company laid the MD to rest earlier this year.
Stalwarts of the LaserDisc player maintain the format offered higher-quality video and audio than the videocassette. But then the DVD came along.
Atari brought the first in-home console to market during the 1970s with the addictive "Pong" and "Centipede." But Atari went from high score to game over, when it filed for bankruptcy in January this year. The rise of gaming on PCs and mobile devices has impacted the console videogame industry.
Eight-inch floppy discs became commercially available in the 1970s. They allowed up to 1.2 megabytes of storage capacity. Today, a flash drive can hold up to 1 terabyte and comes in all sorts of practical novelty designs.
Long before there was Instagram, Polaroid was king. The Polaroid celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2012. But by then most of us had no more need to ever shake a Polaroid picture again. Not entirely resurrected, Polaroids are retro-cool and often pop up at weddings and other celebrations.
CDs and Discmans may have fallen out of favor in the iTunes world, but creative minds always find new uses for the reflective music carriers.
People slapped these suckers on their hips, feeling important whenever they beeped or vibrated. Then they'd frantically have to find a few coins to use a payphone. The RIM 850 (before it was called BlackBerry) pager could send messages and emails but never nailed the art of the selfie.
The pocket PC and Palm Pilot brought your calendars, addresses, contacts and a calculator into one handy dandy tool instead of hand-scrawled notebooks. Downsides apart from the original green screen? They couldn't make calls. Worse than that, the pen/pencil/stylus/thingy would always vanish.
floppy disc disk
Polaroid
CD on a bike
ym.rim.850.pager
Pocket PC
VHS player
sony walkman
minidisc player
laserdisc
Atari console
Such disks were already becoming obsolete by the end of that decade, being edged out by smaller, non-floppy 3.5 to 5.25-inch disks, before being almost completely replaced by the CD in the late 90s.
Except in Washington that is. The GAO report says that U.S. government departments spend upwards of $60 billion a year on operating and maintaining out-of-date technologies.
That's three times the investment on modern IT systems.

Obsolete

Insanely priced gadgets from the '80s

Insanely priced gadgets from the '80s 01:12
The report says the Pentagon is planning to replace its floppy systems -- which currently coordinate intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), nuclear bombers and tanker support aircraft -- by the end of 2017.
Other departments were also put on notice to update their systems. The U.S. Treasury for example, still depends on assembly language code "initially used in the 1950s."
Bringing government departments into the 21st century has proven difficult across the board.
Megan Smith, the current U.S. Chief Technology Officer, told the New York Times in 2015 of the "culture shock" experienced by the tech-savvy Obam

 

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