Japan’s authorities says goodbye to floppy disks

Floppy disks might look like a relic from an historic time of computer systems however there are nonetheless locations and even governments on this planet that also use them to run its most elementary capabilities. Japan is not a type of international locations.

Japan’s Digital Company introduced on Wednesday it has rid its use of outdated floppy disks to function its authorities laptop programs. The one system nonetheless in place that requires the usage of floppy disks is an environmental system that displays car recycling, in response to Reuters.

Digital Minister Taro Kono declared in an announcement to the information company, “We’ve received the conflict on floppy disks on June 28!” Presumably, the assertion wasn’t printed on that annoying dot matrix printer paper with the sides that by no means tear straight.

Kono’s company began his campaign in opposition to ‘90s period laptop know-how in 2022 shortly after his appointment to the Digital Company. Round 1,900 of Japan’s authorities procedures used floppy disks and different outdated know-how resembling fax machines, CDs and MiniDiscs. He famously declared “a conflict on floppy discs [sic]” to his 2.5 million followers on X.

After all, Japan isn’t the one nation that used to depend on floppy disks lengthy after the remainder of the world moved on to extra environment friendly types of information storage. The US navy was nonetheless utilizing 8-inch floppy disks to function its Strategic Automated Command and Management System (SACCS), a Seventies laptop system that acquired nuclear launch codes and despatched emergency messages to navy facilities and discipline sources. The world discovered the scary reality about SACCS due to CBS’s 60 Minutes and reporter Lesley Stahl. The Protection Division lastly phased out the system in 2019. Let’s hope additionally they eliminated the shag carpeting and velvet upholstery.