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Masimatutu@mander.xyz to Memes@lemmy.ml · 2 years ago

Floppy disks were high-tech weapons once

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Floppy disks were high-tech weapons once

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Masimatutu@mander.xyz to Memes@lemmy.ml · 2 years ago
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  • SuperIce@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    The US nuclear arsenal still runs on floppy disks.

    EDIT: The Air Force claimed they finished a migration from 8-inch floppy disks to solid state storage in June 2019, so my info is slightly out of date. They did use floppy disks for over 50 years though (1968-2019).

    • Usernamealreadyinuse@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      The thing with random internet replies: you never know if it’s true (you could look it up, but that would make life to easy).

      So this is or:

      • really scary
      • unbelievable smart cause nobody knows how to use them
      • not true

      Probably there are some other options but I’ll go for a combination of the first and second one and hoping for the third

      • SuperIce@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        Doing a bit of research online, my info is slightly out of date. They used floppy disks from 1968 to 2019. In 2019, they migrated from the old 8 inch floppy to “highly secure solid-state storage”. They don’t specify what type of solid state storage they actually use now though.

        Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/us/nuclear-weapons-floppy-disks.html

        • constantokra@lemmy.one
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          2 years ago

          I’d guess it’s one of these.

          • Confused_Emus@lemmy.world
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            2 years ago

            The R in smart looked like an H at first. Was wondering if they made these in Maine.

        • mlg@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          “Highly secure solid-state storage”

          Probably used the same encryption scheme on an SD card adapter that plugs directly into the floppy drive lol.

          • gizmonicus@sh.itjust.works
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            2 years ago

            Like one of those old cassette tapes with a headphone cable when MP3 players first came out and cars didn’t have adapters? Lol

        • Usernamealreadyinuse@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          Thanks this makes me feel (a bit) more secure…

      • TurboDiesel@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        It was true at one point, but has since changed. The systems are totally air-gapped and worked 100% of the time, so there was never a reason to change them.

        Also true: Boeing still uses floppies to update their 747s.

        • atlasraven31@lemm.ee
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          2 years ago

          Yup, we don’t want it to crash.

          • Kogasa@programming.dev
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            2 years ago

            Eh? You can verify bit for bit that a digital transfer off an SSD was successful.

            • tilcica@lemm.ee
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              2 years ago

              yea but SSDs are not reliable enough. random bit flips from cosmic events, degradation of data if unpowered for a long time, can only be written to so many times

              they are VERY reliable for casual PC use or even server storage but not for something that could start ww3 if it glitches

              also, as some other people said, dont change something that already works

              • Kogasa@programming.dev
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                2 years ago

                That has nothing to do with file transfer (“updating”), just long term storage. It’s also a solved problem. You can solve it at the software level with modern self-healing filesystems.

      • kamenLady.@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        It boils down to “never change a running system”

        • atlasraven31@lemm.ee
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          2 years ago

          Laughs in Linux

  • imPastaSyndrome@lemm.ee
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    2 years ago

    It’s not the disks it’s what’s ON the disks

    • jollyrogue@lemmy.ml
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      2 years ago

      Supposedly on the disks. The files were saved, but did the FAT table eat itself was the question. 😂

      • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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        2 years ago

        FAT table eat itself

        heh

      • seth@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        deleted by creator

    • oldGregg@lemm.ee
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      2 years ago

      An embarrassing snapshot of spongebob at the Christmas party?

  • Son_of_dad@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    I remember when floppies where called floppy because they were huge and floppy (that’s what she said). Before the hard shell smaller floppies became a thing.

    • wunami@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      The disk part was still floppy.

    • toofpic@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      Still, hard floppys was really easy to damage - fart near it, and it’s unreadable

      • atlasraven31@lemm.ee
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        2 years ago

        My favorite thing was messing with the metal slider until it broke.

        • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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          2 years ago

          Fidge spinners of their time

          It was that or ballpoint pens. Good thing we still have the latter since even fidget spinners seem to have disappeared

        • Agent641@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          Shhhck… SNAP. Shhhck… SNAP.

      • Meldroc@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        I think in the later dying days of the floppy disk, the manufacturers made them with really poor quality. It used to be in earlier years, say the 8-bit years when floppy disks were still floppy, that the disks could keep your data for years if you treated them like vinyl records and never touched the magnetic surface.

        In the late years, I’ve seen floppy disks that failed almost immediately.

      • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        They weren’t that bad. Hell AOL mailed millions of those damn things in envelopes and they usually worked.

        • nxdefiant@startrek.website
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          2 years ago

          Tape over the read only hole and reuse it: H A C K E R M A N

          • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
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            2 years ago

            I always made sure to grab a dozen of those for homework on my way out of CompUSA.

      • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        Had a teacher one time draw a grid on her whiteboard with a space for each student, and she asked us to place our disks with our projects on the board with a magnet (so we wouldn’t lose them). The school had recently gotten rid of the old dusty chalkboard, and was really enamored with her new whiteboard and showing off her fridge magnet collection.

        Luckily, someone pointed out why that was a bad idea before anyone did it, and she quickly changed her mind.

  • gazby@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

  • Caboose12000@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    what are all these old memes doing with save icons? /s

    • unrelatedkeg@lemmy.sdf.org
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      2 years ago

      SAVING THE WORLD

  • Altima NEO@lemmy.zip
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    2 years ago

    Shredder had a zip disk

    • Agent641@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      He would

  • Dr. Coomer@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Who said they still cant?

  • buzz86us@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Well considering most code is under a megabyte it makes sense

  • alienanimals@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Nowadays it’s all data crystals.

    • atlasraven31@lemm.ee
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      2 years ago

      Stargate did it.

      • Kogasa@programming.dev
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        2 years ago

        And Star Trek and Star Wars and probably Galaxy Quest

      • alienanimals@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        Babylon 5 as well.

  • BustinJiber@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Remember a Decepticon that transformed into a cassette?

    • samus12345@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      Poor Soundwave, he and his minions are obsolete! Maybe they can get upgrades so he transforms into an MP3 player and they transform into SD cards.

      • Conradfart@lemmy.ca
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        2 years ago

        There is already an actual flash drive version of Ravage.

      • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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        2 years ago

        Leading to intergalactic war accidentally started by DankPods.

    • darth_tiktaalik@lemmy.ml
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      2 years ago

      Gotta be at some very specific places to fool people with that in 2023

  • chuckleslord@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    It’s a goober

  • Katana314@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    I remember when movies/games first started using UBS sticks to contain important plot-macguffin data, it seemed very high-tech and expensive. Of course, now high-capacity sticks are incredibly cheap so anyone can have a whole drawer of them.

    • BruceTwarzen@kbin.social
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      I liked when they used minidisks. It looked high tech and you could toss it around, unlike a cd. And it was bigger than a usb stick, so it was a better plot device.

  • Godort@lemm.ee
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    Shredder and Usagi seem to be holding Zip discs rather than floppy discs. I have no idea what Ripster is holding.

    In fact, Lexington seems to be the only one with a floppy disc here

    • Altima NEO@lemmy.zip
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      Yeah that was the episode where shredder had some software that could create holographic clones of people. But Bebop and Rocksteady fucked up and caused the machine to make Shredder behave like Michaelangelo.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      I was going to guess LS120 (a.k.a. “superdisc”), but that’s not it.

      Turns out after some searching that it looks like 3.5" magneto-optical.

      • Godort@lemm.ee
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        I’ve never heard of that format before. These things are neat.

  • Zerush@lemmy.ml
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    2 years ago

    A simple command line in AutoGPT can be enough, as proven with ChaosGPT. But I am more afraid of human stupidity than of AI, it is this that is going to destroy us.

    • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      If AI destroys us, it will be a result of human stupidity.

      • Zerush@lemmy.ml
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        2 years ago

        Ameca think the same https://file.coffee/u/J8iIcvtKb070Z5fYiLCjY.mp4

  • CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml
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    Climate change increased drastically since the era of floppy disks, coincidence!?

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