SFMTA's train system in SF running on floppy disks; city fears 'catastrophic failure' before upgrade
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 เม.ย. 2024
- SFMTA's train system in San Francisco is not only relying on humans to run it, but turns out that a floppy disk has been playing a key role for decades. abc7ne.ws/43NKqgo
#sfmta #sanfrancisco #publictransportation #train #floppydisk #abc7news
whats the big deal, trains run fine, floppy disk is unhackable
basically, you cant FIX a floppy either.
no one left to code it.
@@markplott4820Again, wrong on both counts. There are plenty of software writers that can write and edit all of the older codes like DOS, and you can easily transfer floppy data to any other form of storage.
@@markplott4820there’s a lot of things that still relies upon floppy disk tho
@@CODTerracraft - NOPE Tesla have never used any Floppy Disc.
I have a 3 TB SSD in my Tesla.
I used to use 1TB Flash Drive.
@@CODTerracraft - I NEVER had any Computer /Apple w/ any Floppy Disc.
always had DVD-R and HDD.
my Current mini MAC is SDD.
There is misinformation in this review. They lead us to believe that in 1998 there were no hard disk drives and that computers had to be booted with floppy discs. Floppy discs were used in this form prior to 1984, not 1998. In 1998 computers were already using hard disk drives. Also the guy mentions the floppy disc is degrading. There are many ways to back up that data to other means of storage. There is no reason that the data on the disc cannot be transferred to another more current form of storage and replace just the drive with that medium.
difficulty is in the CODING , which us outdated , cannot be Translated, Recreated.
@@markplott4820Stop spouting nonsense. There are still plenty of people who can write and correct DOS and other earlier code formats. The issue is more one of floppy drive hardware being unavailable or reparable. As others have mentioned, it is easy to transfer data from floppy to updated storage.
Going from memory:
Digital Equipment Corporation - Rainbow had a hard disk, and this was in 1984-85.
It was limited, as the one I used was a slave terminal that tied into corporate DEC VAX.
It was pretty rock solid. We had a lightning strike one time.
They just restored it to last valid transaction.
Yeah, for the record, hard disk drives go back to the 1950s. Floppy disks were released in the 1970s. Apparently SFMTA and this TV station think that the viewers are idiots.
Yeah I must be old...since I can definitely confirm contrary to the gray-haired woman that computers all had hard drives in the 3.5" floppy disk era and floppy disks don't have enough space to load an operating system from that time onward anyway. Maybe she was referring to earlier times with the 5.25" floppy disks and computers like the 1984 IBM Tandy, which is what my family first had when I was young with its two 5.25" floppy drives in front. DOS was on the ROM for that one though. Still not booted from a floppy.
Unwarranted panic. First, floppy disks can be copied. So IT can make as many copies of a working disk as they want to ensure there are always disks that can be used. Second, internet and network based systems can be hacked. The latest and greatest technology comes with lots of problems that a tried and true system doesn't have.
Tesla hardware is Incredible difficult to hack.
Tesla hires White Hat hackers to Attempt to access a Tesla.
they WIN prizes like a TESLA car & $Thousands of Dollars in CASH.
most Vulnerabilities are the Infotainment System.
the Tesla car Software , cannot be hacked.
no Hacker has EVER been able to START a Tesla.
It’s 1s and 0s. Just like all digital information. You can email it to every email address on Earth.
They're stupid. He talks about the info degrading on the floppies. What no backup or duplicate copies of the floppies? Sesh. I threw out boxes of those floppies within the past year, i don't have anything anymore that will read or write 'em. Unbelieveable.
I still have stacks of AOL 3.5-inch floppies.
Still have some old programs on floppy, including a tank battle video game (using wire frame graphics) and working 1/4" reel-to-reel audio tapes from my days as a DJ circa 1980 (all of which were transferred to digital). Kinda cool to run an old dos game on a Mac laptop.
No kidding. I was shocked when Jeff was talking out of his ass about degrading floppies. I still have and use my old vintage computers for fun complete with floppy drives and I back up my stuff to newer floppies. I have a nice stockpile, so if they need some, I have can supply them. 😁
Yeah this story makes no sense. It's just BS. I guess they are trying to get the message across that they need new software, and they think the viewers are idiots.
the company I work for still use floppies today and yes, they do go bad easily. Try ejecting it while the read/write light is still on. That's the easiest way to corrupt the data. Employees who are in their early 20s don't know they aren't supposed to eject them while the read/write light is On. Problem we're facing now is they're increasingly difficult to buy and they can be very expensive.
If it works it works. I'll bet you when they start doing upgrades the new system is going to cause wrecks and chaos. Just because it's old doesn't mean it isn't up to the job.
In 2014, a CBS _60 Minutes_ report publicized a bit of technology trivia many in the defense community were aware of: the fact that eight-inch floppy disks were still used to store data critical to operating the Air Force's intercontinental ballistic missile command, control, and communications network. The system, once called the Strategic Air Command Digital Network (SACDIN), relied on IBM Series/1 computers (Introduced November 16, 1976; 47 years ago and discontinued 1988) installed by the Air Force at Minuteman II missile sites in the 1960s and 1970s. Those floppy disks have now been retired as of 2019.
"Hello supervisor. Why do I have a blue screen with the message fatal error?"
@@RaymondHng Yeah, it's little different though since 8 inch floppies are very hard to find since they were used before the home computer wars around 1983 started the mass appeal of computers and floppy drives. By then, the 5.25 inch floppy was the main size floppy being used and the 3.5 inch floppy was just introduced. That SACDIN really needed to be retired due to the lack of 8 inch floppys.
@@puffpuffin1 Eight-inch floppies were used in hobbyist computers running 8-bit operating systems such as CP/M in the 1970s. The Heathkit H47 was an eight-inch floppy subsystem that connected to a Heathkit H8 computer running CP/M. Eight-inch floppy drives functioned differently from 5.25-inch floppy drives in that they spun the floppy disk continuously whereas 5.25-inch drives spun only when the drive was accessed. The IBM PC that used 5.25-inch floppies was introduced in August 1981 and the IBM PS/2 that used 3.5-inch floppies was introduced in 1987.
True, in the computer industry, more disasters occurred while trying to fix what ain't broke than aging system itself.
People don’t realize that newer systems on the cloud can be hacked. Using floppy disks is way safer.
in 1998 Computers totally had hard drives.
Perhaps some folks who were born in the 21st century aren't sure. I remember desktop computers started having internal hard drives back in the 1980's.
A company I worked at in 1982 had several old IBM 20 mb drives ganged together taking up the space of a refrigerator. They were replaced with several much higher capacity drives that could fit in a computer fame. Around 1994 I got to work on installing a gigabyte array with redundant backup for video editing systems. Don't get me started on acoustic modem technology.
@@dng2000 the lady who was interviewed who claimed they didn't have hard drives was definitely born in the 20th century.
Yeah I must be old...since I can definitely confirm contrary to the gray-haired woman that computers all had hard drives in the 3.5" floppy disk era and floppy disks don't have enough space to load an operating system from that time onward anyway. Maybe she was referring to earlier times with the 5.25" floppy disks and computers like the 1984 IBM Tandy, which is what my family first had when I was young with its two 5.25" floppy drives in front. DOS was on the ROM for that one though. Still not booted from a floppy.
@@Feraeond Your mention of 5.25" floppy disks also reminds me of the Apple IIe and Apple IIgs that I used to enjoy playing with back in my elementary school days. :)
Risk are supposed to pay off. Spending a few extra $100 million doesn't sound a reasonable investment.
goddamnit, SF is not silicon valley! and so what if its a floppy disk. if it isnt broken dont fix it
Floppies were obsolete in 98. This is BS. My dad had a pc with a hard drive in 85
This makes it seem like the ENTIRE muni metro system is running on disks - these trains have real drivers that can take over when needed. Now yes, the automatic system IS more efficient, which is why it's still being used after 25 years, but this broadcasts exaggerates quite a bit.
AI will fix the software, reduce need for Humans.
After they get their 100million grant, they’re finally going to be able to buy 3 new floppy disks to make back up copies. Then they’re going to pat themselves on the back with 50 million dollar bonuses.
Exactly
I'm confident that passengers like me only care that the trains are running correctly and without delays regardless of what's being used to run those trains.
100 million upgrade that can be solved with a few Gotek floppy emulation drives ... damn buracracy
Was thinking the same thing, but I think you still need some firmware that will run on whatever computer it is. I can't use an Amiga Gotek on an Atari computer or an AKAI sampler, etc.
@@puffpuffin1 true but it shouldn't be that hard to get running and that is only if it isn't using something somewhat mainstream
Yep, did this with my thirty year old Roland keyboard...worked flawlessly...now it reads the little thumbnail drive instead of a 3 1/2" disk...The real problem with floppies and their drives, back in the day, was dust. The disks would become unreadable and the dust would eventually render the read/write head in the drive too damaged to read or write. And yes, you can copy the disks, but with not much effort the disks can be altered, (locally of course, not over the network) and could possibly fail in the course of a day. Going to a more permanent media would be a good start...either a hard disk or a thumb drive, though these aren't exactly perfect solutions. (And those 3 1/2" disks only held 1.44 megabytes of data. I think the smallest thumb drive now is around 32 gigs! Maybe a small micro SD card would be a workaround.) Cheers
They’ll spend money on this instead of fixing the homeless and crime issue.
Doesn't matter, it's a simple task (block system). A dope head jumping on the track is what you need to worry about.
But can you play Oregon Trail on the system?
on 5.25 floppy Apple II system
Nah How about Treasure Mountain!
😅
Well hey, you can't hack a floppy disk if it's not online.
its EASY to build a SCIF and a AIR gaped Computer System.
3:00 "Mom what is this?" 😔😔
Mom: "It's a hard disk!"😖😭😭
Propaganda to justify spending more money that the SFMTA doesn't have, and maybe cause raising fares/fees. NASA still uses floppy disks to operate some of its very old projects, and it works just fine. As long as it works, we don't need to use the latest tech. In 2016, the SFMTA office server was hacked with ransomware, demanding $70K payment in bitcoin. That system controlled all the ticketing processing. So Muni was forced to shut it down, and allowed everyone to ride for free. Luckily, the trains operate thru an isolated old system (floppy disks), so commuting was not affected. Once SFMTA modernizes the train's control system, it'll probably no longer be isolated. It'll become a target for hackers, from Russia, China, and North Korea.
And even some of us lone wolves right here in the U.S. of A.?
Runs fine, just wait for the upgrade and watch the problems increase
They should use lessons learned from problems that have plagued the airline industry due to not checking upgrades before launching them.
WTF!!! Technology capital of the United States, and they’re running on floppy disk
dont they get federal grant money to stay relevant and upgrade where has it been going ?
@@hou5eheadjason when the story stops making sense that’s where the lies and scandal starts
In 2014, a CBS _60 Minutes_ report publicized a bit of technology trivia many in the defense community were aware of: the fact that eight-inch floppy disks were still used to store data critical to operating the Air Force's intercontinental ballistic missile command, control, and communications network. The system, once called the Strategic Air Command Digital Network (SACDIN), relied on IBM Series/1 computers (Introduced November 16, 1976; 47 years ago and discontinued 1988) installed by the Air Force at Minuteman II missile sites in the 1960s and 1970s. Those floppy disks have now been retired as of 2019.
Simple and efficient beats complex and wonderful.😂
nothing wrong with that...longer-lasting than a typical usb pendrive btw
That's a 3 1/2 Inch "Floppy" not a 5 1/4 inch Floppy. Reporter called it five inches.
Exactly, every morning I can tell what I'm holding and it's not 5 1/4 inches.
@@hansfeld5233 It's only 3.5 inches?
The train is way more likely to malfunction during and after the "upgrade"
It has been running just fine with the floppy.
A little bit of sensationalism here. It's just the Muni Metro portion that uses CBTC, they could always revert to manual control and loose ATO with ATC functionality, albeit with degraded service.
Great update for hackers, unless a hacker can get the floppy to the train system.
Or if someone plays Treasure Mountain or odell lake on it
Someone wants to make a big commission from a new multi billion train computer. Backup the floppy it’s cheap.
If it works, don't change it.
So SFMTA trains being ran by a Texas Instruments computer??
😂
I heard it's OS2/Warp which is still MS-DOS based, so I don't understand why they can't just make copies in DOS mode. 🤔
The system is running of a program not a floppy disk . It can be copied to any other form of storage including cloud .
“Don’t copy, that floppy” 😊
Was thinking that too. 🤣 They may be afraid of losing funding if the Feds find out they are "copying" software.🤣
Suppose it could be worse. Could be using a 5" or 8" disk.
Or punched cards. 🤨
if it works, they'll keep using the floppy disks for another 50 years😂
not many make Floppy Disc anymore.
Computer stores have gone Bankrupt.
my Transflash memory card has 1000x more memory than a Floppy.
my SSD - hard drive has 1 million x more memory.
Why can't they just back up the floppy disk?
How is this bad? It works. Its more reliable than any highway
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it
Those are diskettes. But floppy disk does sound funnier.
Diskettes was never a term for these, or even close.
@@7531monkey try google sometime.
Same thing
Those floppy disk are unhackable. I’m happy with that.
100 million dollars+++ to move away from Floppy Disks? Wow, sounds like the same people that are running the Caltrain Electrification project ROFL
Correction: That's a 3.5" floppy disk, not a 5" disk (1:54). 5.25" in disks came before that, which were still being installed in the late 1980's and early 1990's PCs. Even before that, there was the 8" disk, which were really floppy, because of the size. As far as data degradation, that's easy to solve. You can make as many copies as you want, whenever you want, assuming you can still buy the disks. I just checked online. They're sold, but on the expensive side. Still, with SMTA's budget, the price should be no problem. That said, of the SFMTA, and every other transit agency, took their systems off the grid, and ran them totally from floppy disks, things will probably be safer. There will be no chance of Russian hackers creating a live video game out of the system, making trains crash into each other. I say let San Francisco lead the nation, and run the whole system on DOS 4.0.
That’s my late high school and early college device tools to storage my school documents and I still have them inside my basement 😅😂
That train is the main character in Memento.
😂 Mom in the video said it was a hard disk. Even she wasn't old enough to know it was a floppy disk.😂
While there are goteks and other devices that can be used to replace a floppy drive, and there are still Sony floppies sealed and available for cheap, I think the whole thing being old enough to be on life support is the reason they want to replace the system. I'm glad to see that the system has lived out its full design life, and it could potentially go for much longer, but given it's 26 years old, it's reasonable to update it.
So y’all want Ai to power these contraptions? Not everything new is ideal.
my SCIF and AIR gap computers , say Different,
@@markplott4820 sorry I don’t speak smart. Let me have this. Sheesh 😏
Used to work with the SFMTA. The amount of grift was mind blowing.
A testament to the resiliance of floppy disks.
wow that’s really old…. a floppy damn
Computers had hard drives in 1998. This woman is misinformed or lying. Hard drives were available for computers as far back as the eighties. You may have needed a floppy to load the software initially, but once it was loaded onto the drive that was it. And both floppies and floppy drives are still available even now, though not common.
Make the tech companies update it in exchange for doing business here.
It’s a “save icon”
Thanks god she found an actual floppy disk to hold up. That was a close one
Anyone that knows anything about computers will know there is absolutely nothing wrong with this system. The worst case scenario would be to use floppy emulator interfaces. But you can still buy disks, drives, and back them up. This system is robust and obviously not online so it's probably in many ways safer and better.
Mom what's this? "it's a hard disk" 2:58
Yeah I know. The reporter is prob too young to know what a floppy disk is. She even said it was 5” and not 3.5”.
at least she said "disk"
All of the money they get from street sweeping parking tickets and they haven’t at least upgraded to an SD card? What are they doing with the money 🤨
Who or what is a floppy disc?
Spending 100's of millions of dollars just so they can stop using floppy disks is dishonest. There are hardware floppy emulators that use SD card storage that can easily replace the floppy drives and disks. They are using people's lack of knowledge to spend money that doesn't need to be spent. There may be other reasons to replace the systems they have but this is not a valid reason.
This is normal. It is the same in NYC with train signals using technology that is over 100 years old. Many other more modern transportation systems we see in places like China, SK and Japan don't use old technology merely because they were built more recently than any of America's. Wait until their transportation systems are 100 years old like ours. They will be going through the same old technology problems needing replacement. The issue is that replacing these older technologies takes time, lots of money, and more importantly, the patience of commuters that will have to put with months or years of service disruption.
Nonsense. There's no way migrating applications stored on floppy disks over to a hard drive costs hundreds of millions of dollars! What the eff. Who's saying it's gonna cost that much? Whoever it is needs to be watched and monitored on how they allocate funds. Total corruption!!!
OMG as someone who knows a little bit about computers this story annoys the hell out of me. Yes it's an old computer, yes it uses floppy disks as a STORAGE medium, but it really is no different than using USB flash drive, a hard drive, and CD. Even the guy says "it works just fine" ... "but data degradation..." so make backups of the floppys! put the data on hard drives to store it, put in the cloud, and when the floppy fails, you get another floppy and make a clone of that disk, I know it's hard to fathom but you can still get floppy disks if you need them. Then the bit about it could cost hundreds of millions to upgrade? Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh! NO, just NO. Those are hundreds of millions that could be better spent on schools, or fixing roadways, or more importantly not increasing all the taxes/fees you charge for car drivers to fund it!!! And why? Because reporters like this are really highlighting their tech intelligence with stories like that.
The whole concept is flawed.
The system needs to be maintained all the time, or otherwise it will break in a costly manner.
Newer is not always better. These newscasters don't know much about technology.
USB Flash drives. EPROMS there are a ton of ways that avoid internet connections and have adapters to be able to retrofit into older HW.
Seriously, what about that hardware failing? Is this just another ploy to get a expensive, custom proprietary upgrade.
Stay classy, humanity.
"It's a save icon!" - what i was expecting from the kid lol.
But seriously, as long as 1) they keep backups, 2) they have lots of spare floppies, and 3) knowledge of the old system isn't lost (i.e. there's only one system programmer left and they die), this isn't as bad as it sounds.
That just means the system was robust
What computer era has a 3.5" floppy disk and not hard drive? She doesn't know what she is talking about.
Floppy drives use removable media. Hard disk drives do not. Removable media must be used by the software developer to distribute the program. The SF Muni Metro system started operating on February 18, 1980. Those three 3.5-inch floppy disks are probably used to load the automatic train control system.
@RaymondHng Question was what computer has a floppy disk drive, 3.5", but not a hard drive? 3.5 didn't come out until 1982. Also people loaded software on to the hard drive.
"I thought we were moving on to AI..."
🤦🏻♂️
What if I told you SFMTA’s train system was running off a floppy disk? Wow 😂😂😂
Sorry never seen a floppy disk until today
If this story is even accurate, it only points out the managerial incompetence of SFMTA and the entire city government.
California dmv has the same problem 25 plus year old software running the system
If it ain’t broke, then don’t fix it.
Ama looks MUCH BETTER with her hair up.
Well at least they are 3 1/4 and not 5 1/2
1998? Computers had hard disks...they were commonplace by the late 80's...Incompetence all around is the answer.
Floppy disks are removable storage media. Hard drives are not removable storage media.
seriously sanfran?
even i haven't seen those in almost two decades, and im in a rural area,we do stuff slow here....even people round here only remember if they're boomers or millenials , gen z and alpha don't know anything about these other than what videos like this will tell them.
These politicians have floppy disk minds.
Just another reason to raise the price of the fair to ride it
Lemme guess: they need more money….lots of money. And prices will then go higher and higher.
Upgrade it to run via a Logitech G-F710 controller.
If it ain't broke don't fix it.
You people need to do some investigative reporting instead of just regurgitating whatever lies they feed you.
So does it work? Because MTA doesn't have billions to upgrade it.
A question of risk?? Exposing infrastructure to remote exploits from bad actors across the globe is less risky then a closed system?
Just saved the city a 100 million dollars.
Now copy the programs to a new disk and move on to some actual infrastructure problems.
WTF are they talking about? Computers had hard drives in 1998.
Floppy disks are removable storage media. Hard drives are not removable storage media.
@@RaymondHng You can remove hard drives from computers. Even in 1998.
@@erikkovacs3097 Hard drives cannot be removed and installed by end users (office workers). Hard drives contain the operating system and they must run all the time. They are not a distributable medium. Software was distributed from the developer to the end user on removable media. Microsoft distributed Microsoft Office on removable media such as floppy disks or CD-ROM or DVD. Microsoft never distributed their software on a hard drive to end users.
1.44mb Baby WOOOOOO
Are you serious? I’d rather them connected to something that can’t be hacked.. It needs to be implemented everywhere, stop paying people less to work from home and get them back in the field.. Can’t hack stuff
Follow the money……
London Breed is falling down, falling down, falling down…………
Also using 28k dial-up internet 🤣
That woman WANTS A.I....
never.
San Francisco has a 15 billion dollar budget.
So wait... Instead of creating backup floppies, they are going to spend millions upgrading the entire system???? Yep. Sounds like SF. 😆🤦♀️😆
so like excuses. can you make copies from a master disk.
wouldn't it be more of a risk changing it itleast on a hard drive it wont get hacked.
Tech capital my arse.
Its probably the only functioning system in the city, best leave it be
if it is working, why fix it. you dont need to have AI technology to operate a metro train. muni is already one of the second expensive department expenditure in city budget. overbudget and excessively underutilized public project, who cares it runs on a floppy disk or AI chips.
I’m sure it’s because they’re “underfunded”
😮