FAA to finally ditch floppy disks

In light of the FAA shutdown due to technical problem in their communication system, Ars Technica told us earlier this week FAA to finally ditch floppy disks in what it calls “historic” tech upgrade:

The FAA said yesterday that it will stop using floppy disks as part of a long-awaited upgrade that will give air traffic controllers faster access to data needed for crucial safety alerts. The new Enterprise Information Display System (E-IDS) will be installed in 435 facilities, replacing several information display systems dating to the 1980s.

There is nothing wrong with old reliable tech, but floppies are no longer manufactured and they wear out.

In 2024, Japan announced they stopped the use of floppy disk and I think I heard people laughing over there. Notoriously in 1998, Apple removed the floppy from the iMac declaring it obsolete.

Never under estimate the amount of systems that still runs mission critical functions that one would consider obsolete. Sometime old is better than new and given how things enshittify, it is prophylaxis. The difficulty end up being finding replacement parts (or consumable) that are needed over time, and maybe the knowledge that is not kept well withing the organisation.