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German Navy to replace aging 8-inch floppy drives with an emulated solution for its anti-submarine frigates (www.tomshardware.com)

submitted 4 months ago by lemmee_in@lemm.ee to c/technology@lemmy.world

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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.

It won’t be trivial to replace three decades old computer hardware seamlessly, while retaining the full functionality of the existing floppies. However, we note that other companies have wrestled similar problems in recent years. Moreover, there are plenty of emulator enthusiasts using technologies for floppy emulation solutions like Gotek drives which can emulate a variety of floppy drive standards and formats. There are other workable solutions already out there, but it all depends on who the German Navy chooses to deliver the project.

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[–] Korkki@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

It might have been selected just for reliability sake. That is how especially militaries usually want them. better to have a tested lesser product of the last gen, than to have the current gen wild card tech that may or may not have a intolerable amount of bugs and problems that could in a combat situation get the ship wrecked and the crew killed.

as always in government, you get the minimum that satisfies the contract.

This is true. That is what you get when you combine governments nearly unlimited budgets with private profit seeking and very little to no oversight. It's either audit the private contractor in everything all the time or have some state company or institution do the product or service for you.