For critical systems, reliability, predictability, consistency, and long-term performance data are more important than modernization. It makes perfect sense that a system like this would lag the leading edge of technology significantly. It is ok if the technology has problems, even if it has high failure rates, as long as the failure rates are predictable - then you can write procedures around them. Floppy disks don’t exactly offer bulletproof reliability, but they are well understood - and also you can generally just toss them on a desk or in a drawer without worrying too much about incidental damage.
You want this kind of technology to be so simple and dependable that you don’t have to think about it, it just works as expected. It also massively simplifies staff training and procedure documentation if the relevant bits of technology don’t change very often - until of course those bits become so outdated that the procedures for getting them to interface with newer systems becomes its own mess.
They havnt been remotely rubust or reliable next to various flash memory systems for 20 years. A little magnetic field or dust and that 1.2Meg is corrupt. Usb flash drives can go through the laundry and get run over by a car and give you your files back.
Yeah agreed. There’s a point made elsewhere in this thread, but the FAA is 100% architected around the idea of understanding and managing risk profiles, and it really works for aircraft. For IT the approach is less sane I’m afraid.
Yeah, I’d guess most of these systems have single purpose computers with a screen that updates every second. There’s not much need to replace 100, 1MHz, computers with a server sending data to 100 ipads, updating every second with pretty colors. Plus I’d say familiarity for the controller is 1000x more important than anything else.
For critical systems, reliability, predictability, consistency, and long-term performance data are more important than modernization. It makes perfect sense that a system like this would lag the leading edge of technology significantly. It is ok if the technology has problems, even if it has high failure rates, as long as the failure rates are predictable - then you can write procedures around them. Floppy disks don’t exactly offer bulletproof reliability, but they are well understood - and also you can generally just toss them on a desk or in a drawer without worrying too much about incidental damage.
You want this kind of technology to be so simple and dependable that you don’t have to think about it, it just works as expected. It also massively simplifies staff training and procedure documentation if the relevant bits of technology don’t change very often - until of course those bits become so outdated that the procedures for getting them to interface with newer systems becomes its own mess.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
“If it ain’t broke, we’ll break it”
I wholeheartedly agree… but floppy disks?!?
They havnt been remotely rubust or reliable next to various flash memory systems for 20 years. A little magnetic field or dust and that 1.2Meg is corrupt. Usb flash drives can go through the laundry and get run over by a car and give you your files back.
Yeah agreed. There’s a point made elsewhere in this thread, but the FAA is 100% architected around the idea of understanding and managing risk profiles, and it really works for aircraft. For IT the approach is less sane I’m afraid.
This guy ITs.
Yeah, I’d guess most of these systems have single purpose computers with a screen that updates every second. There’s not much need to replace 100, 1MHz, computers with a server sending data to 100 ipads, updating every second with pretty colors. Plus I’d say familiarity for the controller is 1000x more important than anything else.