In case anyone ever wonders how bad tempered, militant, conservative-minded, traditionalist Phantom came to hate the Canadian military at age 17, and continues to hold the world-wide military as a whole in contempt to this day, an example.
The German Navy is searching for a new storage system to replace the aging 8-inch (20cm) floppy disks which are vital to the running of its Brandenburg class F123 frigates. According to an official tender document, the ideal answer to the German Navy's problems would be a drop-in floppy disk replacement based upon a storage emulation system, reports Golem.de. Germany's Brandenburg class F123 frigates were commissioned in the mid 1990s, so it is understandable that floppy disks were seen as a handy removable storage medium. These drives are part of the frigates' data acquisition system and, thus "central to controlling basic ship functions such as propulsion and power generation," according to the source report.
A tiny bit of background for those of you under 60, the eight inch floppy disk (8") was current computer technology in the 1970s. Introduced for mini-computers in 1971 by IBM, carried 500K of data, and it was popular. Eventually discontinued in favor of the 5.25" and later the 3-1/2", by the 1980s just in time for PCs. Here's a website that some guy put up about playing with 8" drives.
So the German fricking navy standardized on 8" floppies in the late 1970s and never changed it for 50 years? Oh no. It is -much- worse than that.
Germany's Brandenburg class F123 frigates were commissioned in the mid 1990s, so it is understandable that floppy disks were seen as a handy removable storage medium. These drives are part of the frigates' data acquisition system and, thus "central to controlling basic ship functions such as propulsion and power generation," according to the source report.
Their frigates were built in the 1990s with tech from the 1970s that was already wildly, horribly obsolete. For which spare parts have not been made for 30 years, because they were already past end-of-life when the ship was built. Every computer on that boat, taken together, could be replaced with a single Apple iWatch. You could run the whole thing from your phone, and still be able to watch cat videos on YouTube.
But the worst part is that for-sure the engineers all knew that very well when the thing was built, and they fucking well did it anyway.
Later in the article it is revealed that the American Strategic Air Command system ran on 8" floppies until they finally fixed it in 2019. You know, the guys that babysit the nukes? Yeah.
I can only imagine the shit that's lurking in the Canadian military, still running on IBM and DEC big iron boxes from the 1970s.
And that, my friends, is why I hold the Western military as a whole in contempt. They are lazy, short-sighted, corrupt, and above all, they are stupid. I can only imagine the freak show that the Chinese and Russian military is.
True story time. I reenlisted in the USMC in the late 1980s and got a pretty nice reenlistment bonus. Most of it went to paying off bills, but I did get an 8088 or XT PC with CGA graphics and a modem for about $1100. No hard drive.
ReplyDeleteAt about the same time, the US Navy and Marine Corps aviation units were implementing a new computerized system for tracking maintenance actions and ordering replacement parts. Each work center had one (or maybe two) dumb terminals that connected to a mainframe. In an offline mode, they were good for making characters on a page, but there was no spell check, no spreadsheets, nor any other useful function.
Those dumb terminals were designed in the 70s and were costing the government...drum roll please...about $1100.
Regards,
Dann
If all opinions that I disagree with were made illegal, fascism would be over. - Titania McGrath
Yep, that's what I'm talking about.
ReplyDeleteNever mind that every one of those things was a couple boxes of practice ammo you guys didn't get, right? And they're probably still using that inventory system somewhere.
We didn't get -boots- when I was in. I took a hard look at the Korean War vintage junk we were driving and flying around in, and the crap we were eating, and figured the Canadian military would kill me -long- before the enemy got a chance.
Fast forward to 2024, it is -much- worse now. So much worse. Some of that Korean War vintage crap is -still- in the armories. We know this because they sent a bunch of it to Ukraine.
The new system was really pretty good. I was working as an expeditor in those days. We had a piece of gear awaiting parts for 2 years. 2 months after I re-entered the order into the new system the part magically appeared.
ReplyDeleteBasically, the old paper system had a problem where I couldn't push the person three links down the chain to do their job, but the computerized system made sure they had a task to complete and that a lack of performance would be obvious to everyone involved.
So if they had been lazy and not really been checking the physical inventory under the old system the new system revealed and resolved the problem quickly.
It was just nuts to spend so much on a dumb terminal when every work center really could have used a real computer.
Regards,
Dann
Up until a handful of years ago, one of the databases I support for the US Army was STILL getting data from a (probably) 70s or 80s era mainframe. For all I know, the mainframe is still out there happily running whatever system it was purchased to support.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, between the technical debt that builds up, the arcane and maze-like purchasing process, and the distinct lack of controlled hand-offs that I've seen, I'm not terribly surprised that a mainframe was (is?) still in use...
(Anon because I don't want this to get back to my employer if I can help it)
Yep, mainframe still in use because some talented lad somewhere is keeping it held together with duct tape and bailing wire, and the occasional animal sacrifice to placate the daemons.
ReplyDeleteIn fairness it must be said that a lot of this is on the manufacturers. There should be a way forward from old models when the new models come out. But there isn't, because they want customers to REPLACE that old box.
On the other hand, government procurement still lives back in the 1890s, when you bought a wagon and expected it to last two generations at least. That is no longer the real world. Real world is Moore's Law, computing capacity doubles every two years. And it's been that way since 1965 when Gordon Moore worked at Fairchild.
That's SIXTY YEARS. Three entire careers of time for the government culture to adapt to reality, and they still can't do it.
Usually when you see that kind of recalcitrance in nature, the species goes extinct. The world moves on and they don't, then they all die. This tells us something about the nature of government.
As far as Russian and Chinese equipment goes, first off remember that they have no compunction about lying and much of what we hear is propaganda.
ReplyDeleteSecond of all, I can't give details, however I've seen and worked with high tech Chinese military equipment. While they use modern electronics, they use commercial parts in places that the US uses mil spec equipment for a reason.
When their stuff works, it works decently - but that's WHEN it works. They go through lots of spares, some of which are bad from the factory.
Oh, and most of their stuff is designed to counter our older equipment, not the more recent stuff.
USA, Anonymous for obvious reasons