The German Navy doesn’t want floppy disks anymore. Only, there’s a problem
The German Navy still uses eight-inch floppy disks for data storage. They are still essential for hunting submarines, and their history dates back to 1971.
8-inch floppy disks? What are they anyway?
Eight-inch floppy disks are the grandmas of the 5.25-inch and 3.5-inch floppy disks that you may have come across earlier. These large-sized media used, and as it turns out, still use, magnetic recording, and their the capacity from the initial 80-175 kB eventually evolved to a military-level 1.2 MB.
5.25-inch disks began to replace them in 1978, and in 1983, revolutionary 3.5-inch disks entered the market, the magnetic disk of which was enclosed in a hard shell, much less susceptible to damage than the soft covers of 8-inch and 5.25-inch disks. These media also reigned supreme in Poland, during the heyday of DOS systems and the beginnings of Windows. Even Windows 95 could still be bought on diskettes, not just on CDs.
The German Navy still uses floppy disks to hunt submarines.
Although it is hard to believe in the era of SSD drives and the ubiquitous cloud, the invention from 50 years ago is still actively used by the German Navy and 8-inch floppy disks are essential for the operation of the Brandenburg F123-class frigates, commissioned in the mid-1990s.
They are used to control basic ship functions, such as propulsion and power generators. The F123 frigates are specialized in hunting submarines, so they are a critical part of the weapon.
However, the Germans say enough and want something new.
The German Navy has embarked on the modernization of its F123 frigates, with Swedish company Saab as the main contractor. Replacing the thirty-year-old computer equipment while maintaining the full functionality of the ship systems is a major challenge.
Hence the idea to, instead of a total rebuild, only change the storage media to more reliable ones. And here, solutions such as Gotek drives can come to the rescue, which can emulate various standards and floppy formats.
There is no point laughing at the Germans
Institutions and offices around the world are struggling with similar problems. The Japanese government celebrated the elimination of floppy disks just earlier this month.and they were necessary for various official regulatory filings. The San Francisco train control system was still struggling with the diskette problem this year, and until 2019, the US Strategic Automated Command and Control System (SACCS) also used 8-inch disks in the military.
