Floppy disks may seem like a relic from the ancient days of computers, but there are still places and even governments around the world that use them to perform their most basic functions. Japan is no longer one of those countries.
Japan’s Digital Agency announced Wednesday that it has stopped using outdated floppy disks to run government computer systems. The only existing system that still requires the use of floppy disks is the environmental system that controls vehicle recycling. Reuters.
Digital Minister Taro Kono told the news agency, “On June 28, we won the fight against floppy disks!” Presumably the statement was never printed on annoying dot-matrix printer paper with straight tear-off edges.
The Kono agency began a crusade against the computer technology of the 90s 2022 Shortly after being appointed to the Digital Agency. About 1,900 Japanese government procedures used floppy disks and other outdated technologies such as fax machines, CDs, and MiniDisks. He famously declared “war on discs [sic]” to 2.5 million followers on X.
Of course, Japan isn’t the only country to use floppy disks long after the rest of the world has moved on to more efficient forms of data storage. It was still used by the US military 8 inch floppy disks To operate the Strategic Automated Command and Control System (SACCS), a 1970s computer system that receives nuclear release codes and sends emergency messages to military centers and field sources. The world learned about SACCS thanks to the terrible truth CBSs 60 Minutes and reporter Lesley Stahl. The Department of Defense finally phased out the system in 2019. Let’s hope they’ve removed the carpets and velvet upholstery, too.
