4 ms·

A Federal Agency That Still Uses Floppy Disks

18 points by selamattidur 13y ago

danso 13y ago
The headline is a bit misleading...the Federal Register, I guess, does use floppy disks, but apparently it's only because other agencies transmit information to them in that way. A couple years ago, the Federal Register did a complete overhaul of their website, using an outside contractor: https://www.federalregister.gov/ https://www.federalregister.gov/ To me, it is the epitome of a well-designed, thorough, user-friendly, data-cognizant website. I don't think there's a government website so well thought out as the Federal Register's.
kevinchen 13y ago
I'm sure there are many, many more federal agencies that use floppies.
CapitalistCartr 13y ago
I use floppy disks. To load programs on my CNC machine running NT 4. Its pre-USB. Not everything can be easily upgraded.
- mariuolo 13y ago
  What about a floppy drive emulator like this: http://i.imgur.com/s0MHRq7.jpg http://i.imgur.com/s0MHRq7.jpg ?
  - CapitalistCartr 13y ago
    That's a good idea. Thanks.
thesprawl 13y ago
"some agencies still scan documents on to a computer and save them on floppy disks. The disks are then sent by courier to the register." So painful to read.
- d23 13y ago
  > So painful to read. Have you considered some sort of reading program? It's not as hard as one might think.
bmelton 13y ago
There are a myriad of agencies still using floppies in some capacity. I know for a fact that the ATF still has them available, even if maybe they're only around for investigate purposes. The Department of Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) (and possibly the Mint) had them the last time I was there, as they're used in the machines that make the moneys. I have it on good authority that floppy disk drives can still be found in the NSA and the Pentagon (though they've made a very strong push for multi-tenancy SAN as primary storage over the past decade), etc., etc. That this one particular agency still receives files on floppy disks necessitates that they still have floppy disk drives, though I must say that I'm a little surprised they haven't simply dictated to their upstream providers that they're switching.
beachstartup 13y ago
so what? i've worked for large, successful private enterprises that still use 1960's technology, such as mainframes, tapes, and terminals.
fiatmoney 13y ago
There is absolutely nothing wrong with floppy disks, as long as a) you have readers and writers on both sides, b) your data fits on them, and c) you can get replacements for the foreseeable future. The point is having a process that works. Just because they don't work for most use cases doesn't mean everyone should switch away from use cases which they do address, at a potentially high cost.
- lsc 13y ago
  The failure rate of floppy disks (or rather, the incidents of uncorrectable bad sectors) is dramatically higher than newer media like flash thumbdrives.
gwu78 13y ago
I think this is great. For the sole reason that it implies the data being transferred fits on a floppy, or a series of floppies. And that in turn implies that it's free from the senseless bloat and inefficiency that often makes "modern" computing so annoying. Software and web programming follows a sort of "inverse Moore's Law", it just keeps getting larger, with speeds remaining constant. Like a gas, it expands to fill space.

18 points by selamattidur 13y ago

danso 13y ago

The headline is a bit misleading...the Federal Register, I guess, does use floppy disks, but apparently it's only because other agencies transmit information to them in that way. A couple years ago, the Federal Register did a complete overhaul of their website, using an outside contractor: https://www.federalregister.gov/ https://www.federalregister.gov/ To me, it is the epitome of a well-designed, thorough, user-friendly, data-cognizant website. I don't think there's a government website so well thought out as the Federal Register's.

kevinchen 13y ago

I'm sure there are many, many more federal agencies that use floppies.

CapitalistCartr 13y ago

I use floppy disks. To load programs on my CNC machine running NT 4. Its pre-USB. Not everything can be easily upgraded.

mariuolo 13y ago
What about a floppy drive emulator like this: http://i.imgur.com/s0MHRq7.jpg http://i.imgur.com/s0MHRq7.jpg ?
- CapitalistCartr 13y ago
  That's a good idea. Thanks.

thesprawl 13y ago

"some agencies still scan documents on to a computer and save them on floppy disks. The disks are then sent by courier to the register." So painful to read.

d23 13y ago
> So painful to read. Have you considered some sort of reading program? It's not as hard as one might think.

bmelton 13y ago

There are a myriad of agencies still using floppies in some capacity. I know for a fact that the ATF still has them available, even if maybe they're only around for investigate purposes. The Department of Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) (and possibly the Mint) had them the last time I was there, as they're used in the machines that make the moneys. I have it on good authority that floppy disk drives can still be found in the NSA and the Pentagon (though they've made a very strong push for multi-tenancy SAN as primary storage over the past decade), etc., etc. That this one particular agency still receives files on floppy disks necessitates that they still have floppy disk drives, though I must say that I'm a little surprised they haven't simply dictated to their upstream providers that they're switching.

beachstartup 13y ago

so what? i've worked for large, successful private enterprises that still use 1960's technology, such as mainframes, tapes, and terminals.

fiatmoney 13y ago

There is absolutely nothing wrong with floppy disks, as long as a) you have readers and writers on both sides, b) your data fits on them, and c) you can get replacements for the foreseeable future. The point is having a process that works. Just because they don't work for most use cases doesn't mean everyone should switch away from use cases which they do address, at a potentially high cost.

lsc 13y ago
The failure rate of floppy disks (or rather, the incidents of uncorrectable bad sectors) is dramatically higher than newer media like flash thumbdrives.

gwu78 13y ago

I think this is great. For the sole reason that it implies the data being transferred fits on a floppy, or a series of floppies. And that in turn implies that it's free from the senseless bloat and inefficiency that often makes "modern" computing so annoying. Software and web programming follows a sort of "inverse Moore's Law", it just keeps getting larger, with speeds remaining constant. Like a gas, it expands to fill space.