this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2024
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342
San Francisco to pay $212 million to end reliance on 5.25-inch floppy disks (arstechnica.com)
submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/technology
54 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

See also: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/5-25-inch-floppy-disks-expected-to-help-run-san-francisco-trains-until-2030/ \ https://lemmy.ca/post/19158929

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[–] reddig33 24 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Sounds like a grift. All you need is an emulator and a disk image.

[–] Zyrxil 25 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Yeah if that's all that needed replacing. The entire system is ancient, not just the disks, like:

Much more critical than the dated use of floppy disks is the system's loop cable, which transmits data between the central servers and the trains and, according to Roccaforte, "has less bandwidth than an old AOL dial-up modem."

The SFMTA's website adds:

The loop cable is fragile and easily disturbed. This makes subway maintenance more difficult. This also means the system cannot be extended outside the subway, along surface rail, where currently we don’t have automatic train control.

[–] reddig33 6 points 1 month ago

The loop cable and other non-floppy improvements are priced out separately according to the article.