German Navy still uses 8-inch floppy disks, working on emulating a replacement

The German Navy is engaged on modernizing its Brandenburg-class F123 frigates, which suggests ending their reliance on 8-inch floppy disks.

The F123 frigates use floppy disks for his or her onboard information acquisition (DAQ) techniques, as famous by Tom’s {Hardware} on Thursday. Augen geradeaus!, a German protection and safety coverage weblog by journalist Thomas Wiegold, notes that DAQs are essential for controlling frigates, together with energy era, “as a result of the working parameters should be recorded,” per a Google translation. The ships themselves specialise in anti-submarine warfare and air protection.

Earlier this month, Augen geradeaus! noticed a young for service printed June 21 by Germany’s Federal Workplace of Bundeswehr Tools, Data Know-how, and In-Service Help (BAAINBw) to modernize the German Navy’s 4 F123 frigates. The ships have been commissioned from October 1994 to December 1996. As famous by German IT information outlet Heise, the continued use of 8-inch floppies regardless of fashionable alternate options being accessible for years “has to do with the truth that established techniques are thought of extra dependable.”

Moderately than overhauling all the DAQ, the federal government plans to develop and combine an onboard emulation system to exchange the floppy disks. This differs from the strategy the US Air Pressure took. In 2019, the US navy department changed the 8-inch floppies for storing information used for working its intercontinental ballistic missile command, management, and communications community with SSDs.

The BAAINBw employed Saab for F123 updates. In July 2021, Saab introduced profitable a contract to “ship and combine new naval radars and hearth management administrators for and within the German Navy’s” F123s, with the work entailing “a brand new fight administration system with the intention to fully overhaul the system at the moment in use on the F123, permitting a low danger integration of the brand new naval radars and hearth management capabilities.” The Swedish firm stated the deal was price about 4.6 billion SEK (about $436,748,840).

Per the BAAINBw’s tender, the substitute of the floppy disks is predicted to begin on October 1 and finish July 31, 2025. F123 frigates are supposed to remain in service till F126s can be found, which is predicted to be between 2028 and 2031.

Additional particulars, like how precisely Saab will exchange the floppies, are confidential. As identified by Tom’s {Hardware}, there are numerous choices for floppy disk emulation, equivalent to units from manufacturers like Gotek which are in style amongst fans.

Floppies preserve floppin’

For the everyday particular person, floppy disks are out of date, however authorities our bodies with already established and efficiently operating techniques in place have been a lot slower to desert the previous storage medium. Moreover the German Navy and US Air Pressure, Japan solely final month formally stopped utilizing floppy disks in governmental techniques. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Company plans to make use of 5¼-inch floppies to assist run San Francisco’s Muni Metro mild rail system till 2030.

Varied industries additionally proceed utilizing floppy disks to assist run machines which have lengthy been used, as Chuck E. Cheese did for animatronics as lately as 2023 {and professional} embroiderers do with embroidery machines.