News German Navy to replace aging 8-inch floppy drives with an emulated solution for its anti-submarine frigates

[Admin]

The German Navy is searching for a new storage system to replace the ageing 8-inch (20cm) floppy disks which are vital to the running of its Brandenburg class F123 frigates.

German Navy to replace aging 8-inch floppy drives with an emulated solution for its anti-submarine frigates : Read more

 

[8086]

In all of these cases, their problems can be solved cheaply with a GotTEK Floppy Emulator.

https://www.gotekemulator.com/Product.asp?big=112

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk4Zb6cdXYU

 

[RoLleRKoaSTeR]

That reminds me... Was not too long ago, that the US had to upgrade it's nuclear IT hardware - still using those 8 inch floppies as well.

 

[TerryLaze]

In all of these cases, their problems can be solved cheaply with a GotTEK Floppy Emulator.

They do mention that in the article.
The drives have to have the modern normal floppy interface to work with a gotek though and the old 8inch ones don't have that, you need an adaptor to make it compatible first and then figure out if it will work with the gotek.
And for the military having to daisy chain things together to make something work is a reliability nightmare.
https://retrocmp.de/fdd/8inch/general.htm

 

[JeffreyP55]

The German Navy is searching for a new storage system to replace the ageing 8-inch (20cm) floppy disks which are vital to the running of its Brandenburg class F123 frigates.

German Navy to replace aging 8-inch floppy drives with an emulated solution for its anti-submarine frigates : Read more

Spending 10 years as a FSE in the late 70's and early 80's. 8" floppies and 160kb capacity Shugart drives that weighed a good 20lbs. Don't miss it at all!
Quit that gig and went back to school. Afterwards had a nice 34 year career working for Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in Menlo Park, CA.

 

[kep55]

A few years back I found a ton of old floppies whose labels had worn away. To determine the contents, I went to ebay, bought a 2-in-1 floppy drive and copied the wanted data to my NAS. I then resold the drive. It seems to me that a quick trip to the German "microcenter" is in order.

 

[Geef]

So are they upgrading those 8" Floppies to 5 1/4" or to 3.5" drives?

You had those drives in the pic and removed the usb drive, that is truly why I'm asking. Completely serious.

 

[KyaraM]

A few years back I found a ton of old floppies whose labels had worn away. To determine the contents, I went to ebay, bought a 2-in-1 floppy drive and copied the wanted data to my NAS. I then resold the drive. It seems to me that a quick trip to the German "microcenter" is in order.

You mean Mediamarkt? It's probably not that easy, sadly. Especially not for the military.

I can kinda already hear the Bundeswehr-stans here screaming about it being about time to get rid of such outdated tech, and why wasn't it done sooner, and we need this and that and blablabla... reading this, lol. I find it pretty interesting to see where such older tech is still in use, honestly, and why.

Also, if that's supposed to be German in the first line of the article, I'm afraid it is 100% wrong...

 

[TerryLaze]

Also, if that's supposed to be German in the first line of the article, I'm afraid it is 100% wrong...

Das Boot (u-boot) , 1981 German war movie.
The author was just being cute and connected boot with disk for boot disk.

 

[Sluggotg]

"Germany’s Brandenburg class F123 frigates were commissioned in the mid 1990s" ??!!! They commissioned a ship in the mid 90's that was built around 8" floppies for its critical systems? In the military, it is common to keep using old tech on a old ship. It is sometimes cheaper and more practical if the tech is still doing what it needs to. I was stationed on an old ship in the US Navy during the 80's that was still using Vacuum Tubes in their communications hardware.
Obviously in the Mid 90's 8" floppies were horrifyingly out of date for a new ship.

 

[USAFRet]

"Germany’s Brandenburg class F123 frigates were commissioned in the mid 1990s" ??!!! They commissioned a ship in the mid 90's that was built around 8" floppies for its critical systems? In the military, it is common to keep using old tech on a old ship. It is sometimes cheaper and more practical if the tech is still doing what it needs to. I was stationed on an old ship in the US Navy during the 80's that was still using Vacuum Tubes in their communications hardware.
Obviously in the Mid 90's 8" floppies were horrifyingly out of date for a new ship.

The ship was likely "designed" in the 70's.

 

[Sluggotg]

The Civilian Nuclear Power Plant I worked at changed out a "Core Memory", memory module for an actual module built with memory chips, in the early 90's. It was still working fine but it was way past time to get rid of it. The new module was very expensive but works fine. In Nuclear Power we do not go with the Latest Greatest Tech in plant systems. It has to be proven to be reliable.

 

[stonecarver]

I was stationed on an old ship in the US Navy during the 80's that was still using Vacuum Tubes in their communications hardware.

I would be icing on the the cake if those tubes were 6550's or KT88's but most likely something else from Magnavox or GE. Cool info

 

[KyaraM]

"Germany’s Brandenburg class F123 frigates were commissioned in the mid 1990s" ??!!! They commissioned a ship in the mid 90's that was built around 8" floppies for its critical systems? In the military, it is common to keep using old tech on a old ship. It is sometimes cheaper and more practical if the tech is still doing what it needs to. I was stationed on an old ship in the US Navy during the 80's that was still using Vacuum Tubes in their communications hardware.
Obviously in the Mid 90's 8" floppies were horrifyingly out of date for a new ship.

Do you have any idea how it takes between planning, building, and commissioning such ships?

To give you an idea, the F126, which will replace the F122, was first thought about in 2009, then the contract was rewarded 2018, and 2021 construction for the first ship started; the ship also needed additional planning to secure it against cyber attacks. If everything goes to plan (and that's quite an if...), said first of 6 ships will be handed over in 2028, the last 2033. Note that "handed over" does not yet mean "commissioned". That can take a year or more since the Marine want to test the ship beforehand, for obvious reasons. So yeah, it actually makes perfect sense that a ship commissioned in the mid-90s would still use floppies, considering how fast new tech back then advanced.

 

[HankJones]

[German Navy to replace aging 8-inch floppy drives with an emulated solution for its anti-submarine frigates]

Maybe fat Leonard has the interface.