SFMTA's train system in San Francisco is not only relying on humans to run it, but turns out that a floppy disk has been playing a key role for decades.
If the system is working, what’s the big deal? Is not like this needs to be running on windows 11 with the ability to send out tweets and Instagram posts. Relying on floppies may seem archaic but it’s better than spending $10B and years of ‘project delays’ just to wind up with a functionally similar system using modern hardware.
As long as they can still get floppies to replace them as they go bad I don’t see a problem. They’re still being made for things like old geological and industrial equipment and will continue being made for a while.
There’ll probably be no more diskette makers in the future, so the train operator should stop using diskettes. I did a quick googling.
In January 2024, Japan announced it will no longer require floppy-disk copies of government submissions.
I did a quick search on amazon.com too. You can buy diskettes there.
I’m assuming the folks doing the upgrade know what they’re doing. Train operation is key, so to be sure, they may need to slowly move away from diskettes and slowly integrate ssds or whatever the replacement will be.
If the system is working, what’s the big deal? Is not like this needs to be running on windows 11 with the ability to send out tweets and Instagram posts. Relying on floppies may seem archaic but it’s better than spending $10B and years of ‘project delays’ just to wind up with a functionally similar system using modern hardware.
As long as they can still get floppies to replace them as they go bad I don’t see a problem. They’re still being made for things like old geological and industrial equipment and will continue being made for a while.
There’ll probably be no more diskette makers in the future, so the train operator should stop using diskettes. I did a quick googling.
I did a quick search on amazon.com too. You can buy diskettes there.
I’m assuming the folks doing the upgrade know what they’re doing. Train operation is key, so to be sure, they may need to slowly move away from diskettes and slowly integrate ssds or whatever the replacement will be.