News Japanese gov celebrates demise of the floppy disk — 1,000+ regulations requiring their use have been scrapped

[Admin]

Japan’s Digital Minister, Taro Kono, is celebrating the demise of the floppy disk. 'We have won the war on floppy disks on June 28,' Kono told Reuters news agency earlier today.

Japanese gov celebrates demise of the floppy disk — 1,000+ regulations requiring their use have been scrapped : Read more

 

[Neilbob]

It's astonishing to me that anyone in the world still uses this media/storage format. It was always so unreliable, even in ideal situations.

The mention of Taro Kono's vendetta to abolish faxes puts me in mind of a job I had a few years ago (story time here):

I worked for a place that often required patient details to be sent by the NHS (UK), and they absolutely insisted these details had to be faxed. I'm talking as recently as 2018 here. The reason given, when I got the opportunity to ask was that 'email isn't secure enough for such information'.

Seriously? A fax that gets spit out on a piece of paper that dozens of people could potentially get hold of is more secure?

As it happens, I had a PC specifically set up to receive faxes old-style, but they didn't know this. Had to use an ancient Windows XP machine with a dial-up modem because I never could manage to make Windows 7 work properly, but I wanted so badly to just ditch the whole faxing monstrosity and be done with it. Except for those patient details, the only other thing we received was incessant adverts from Dell, of all places.

I hope this is no longer the case, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is.

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Yeah, I know this has very little to do with the article... but I like being that creaky old granddad who sits all day in an overstuffed armchair relating tales of yesteryear to relatives who pretend to be interested while exchanging long-suffering glances behind my back.

 

[ehkuso]

"He has been vocal about the elimination of long-in-the-tooth formats like floppy and optical disks and has also been dancing on the graves of fax machines and other analog technologie."

Fax is a digital technology.

Most "fax machines" I see in Japan are multi-function devices that can scan and print. Fax reception may be POTS but can also be Internet.

US healthcare depends on "fax machines" as does law and architecture.

https://www.computerworld.com/artic...care-and-its-not-going-away-anytime-soon.html

As a Japan citizen and voter, I regard Kono Taro as a clown. He appeals to some non-Japanese because his comments about use of fax in Japan allows them to think they are superior to the Japanese.