It took until 2019 for the US to give up the 8” floppies that ran its nuclear launch systems.
A 60 Minutes tour of the US nuclear control center in 2014 gave the public a glimpse behind the curtain of how the defense sector works. It also revealed that in the event that the US president ordered the launch of a nuclear warhead, the command would rely on 8-inch floppy disks and a 1970s era IBM Series/1 mainframe computer.
Rossi told C4isrnet that though the overall computer system is old, its age provides security.
“You can’t hack something that doesn’t have an IP address. It’s a very unique system – it is old and it is very good,” Rossi told the publication.
People are still using floppies?
Yup. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/07/german-navy-still-uses-8-inch-floppy-disks-working-on-emulating-a-replacement/
AFAIK there are long term science programs that are using archaic computer systems so probably yes.
I’d like to read about those. Can you link some?
https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a27928/22-years-later-windows-95/
Mostly anecdotal from comments and whatnot, but here is a PM article
It took until 2019 for the US to give up the 8” floppies that ran its nuclear launch systems.
https://www.cnet.com/science/us-military-retires-floppy-disks-used-by-nuclear-weapons-system/