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US Nuclear Weapons Still Use Floppy Disks

Floppy Disks As Used By US Nuclear Missile Systems

The US Government have revealed that many of its nuclear weapons systems still rely on antiquated 8-inch floppy disks.

A report by the Accountability Office (GAO) highlighted the Pentagon as one of the government departments with Cold War 'legacy systems' in urgent need of replacement.

Department of Defence systems that operate intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles 'run on IBM Series-1 computers, built and bought in the 1970s and reliant on floppy disks in order to function.

The GAO says the machine which sends and receives emergency action messages for US nuclear forces was first introduced in 1976.

The Pentagon are planning to replace the entire system by 2020, not least because maintaining the ageing technology is extremely expensive.

US taxpayers are forking out $61bn (£41bn) every year to keep the legacy products going, three times more than the anticipated investment in modernising IT systems.

Pentagon spokeswoman Lt Col Valerie Henderson said: "This system remains in use because, in short, it still works."

"However, to address obsolescence concerns, the floppy drives are scheduled to be replaced with secure digital devices by the end of 2017."

"Modernisation across the entire Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications enterprise remains ongoing."

The US Treasury is also languishing in the technological past, still using code that was created in the 1950s and often tied into the systems and hardware for which it was written.

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