I was in a tower last year. They were sequencing aircraft with little loops of paper placed onto a wooden dowel. It can and should be better. Doesn't need to be whiz-bang, but it should not be paper slips and wooden sticks. (and floppy disks)
Remember, this is the government we're talking about. That system was likely being worked on from 1980s to 1990s before itactually went in to implementation phase in 1990s.
Kind of makes sense for the time given hardware was evolving so rapidly after Apple and MS brought PCs to the masses; a solution deployed in 1980 was out of date by 1981.
Workers of the day were used to paper first routines; PCs on every desk were not common until the 90s when home computers, like phones in 2026, hit a fast enough for most tasks in an office constant upgrades are not necessary.
I feel like people under a certain age don't really understand this.
While we see improvements in hardware and software today, it's NOTHING like the late 80's and 90's. Our first home pc was out of date in less than a year (thank you for that recommendation, Tiger Direct). As a child, I couldn't run games that came out more than about 10-12 months after we upgraded our machine. It really was stunning to be a part of.
And now my home pc is about 4 years old, and replaced a machine that was 9. I plan to run this one for at least another 6 or 7 years unless something amazing happens that nobody sees coming.
If you didn't upgrade often, it could happen that you bought a new machine that was 10x as fast as the old one. It was just incredible how fast everything was after such an upgrade. A 486-66 to a Celeron-416 (common overclock at the time) in my case. The 486-66 was a year or two old for me - I had fished board and CPU out of the trash somewhere because before that I had a 486-33 bought in '94.
>The FAA cited an October 13 event where a fiber optic cable connecting Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport to the FAA’s network was cut outside an airport gate, leading to the loss of data services between FAA facilities and requiring a ground stop.
Do they seriously not have a backup connection? I would have expected them to have a backup stelite or maybe even a 4G/5G mobile data system in place.
If I can use my phone as a Hotspot when Comcast is doing some service so I can work, I don't understand what idiot designed an airport without backup connections.
Useful aphorism in general, not terribly applicable in this case. Even if it had been tested regularly, it was cut around the same time the primary failed. Regular testing doesn't stop construction crews from cutting a line.
A more useful comment might have been to say something about the depth of the backup, having only one backup connection not being enough or something.
> I don't understand what idiot designed an airport without backup connections.
I have literally spraypainted the pavement and wall - "One fibre goes here, and down on the corner there, the other fibre goes there" - just to ensure a good separation of routes. I want the pinch point to be within the rack that the routers sit in.
That airport did have two redundant connections, this was a swiss cheese failure where one was under maintenance and the other was severed by an independent event.
In my carreer I have seen plenty of system integrations working on ftp'ing request response documents to file folders on "SaaS" systems while the SV boys were considering SOAP obsolete and overnight Cobol and RPG mainframes document sincs while they were waxing about microservises and noSQL.
I was in a tower last year. They were sequencing aircraft with little loops of paper placed onto a wooden dowel. It can and should be better. Doesn't need to be whiz-bang, but it should not be paper slips and wooden sticks. (and floppy disks)
FAA website on EIDS: https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/eids
Another article with some more details: https://www.pcmag.com/news/the-faa-is-still-using-floppy-dis...
I know they are saying IDS-4 is a "1980s" system, but it appears IDS-4 was actually developed in the early 1990s; it uses MS-DOS and 3.5 inch floppies: https://sysatl.com/systems-atlanta-inc-awarded-faa-ids4-sust...
Remember, this is the government we're talking about. That system was likely being worked on from 1980s to 1990s before itactually went in to implementation phase in 1990s.
Kind of makes sense for the time given hardware was evolving so rapidly after Apple and MS brought PCs to the masses; a solution deployed in 1980 was out of date by 1981.
Workers of the day were used to paper first routines; PCs on every desk were not common until the 90s when home computers, like phones in 2026, hit a fast enough for most tasks in an office constant upgrades are not necessary.
There was a lot of ducks to align back then.
I feel like people under a certain age don't really understand this.
While we see improvements in hardware and software today, it's NOTHING like the late 80's and 90's. Our first home pc was out of date in less than a year (thank you for that recommendation, Tiger Direct). As a child, I couldn't run games that came out more than about 10-12 months after we upgraded our machine. It really was stunning to be a part of.
And now my home pc is about 4 years old, and replaced a machine that was 9. I plan to run this one for at least another 6 or 7 years unless something amazing happens that nobody sees coming.
If you didn't upgrade often, it could happen that you bought a new machine that was 10x as fast as the old one. It was just incredible how fast everything was after such an upgrade. A 486-66 to a Celeron-416 (common overclock at the time) in my case. The 486-66 was a year or two old for me - I had fished board and CPU out of the trash somewhere because before that I had a 486-33 bought in '94.
I’m surprised that they still find floppies to use considering the youngest floppy is now going to high school
>The FAA cited an October 13 event where a fiber optic cable connecting Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport to the FAA’s network was cut outside an airport gate, leading to the loss of data services between FAA facilities and requiring a ground stop.
Do they seriously not have a backup connection? I would have expected them to have a backup stelite or maybe even a 4G/5G mobile data system in place.
If I can use my phone as a Hotspot when Comcast is doing some service so I can work, I don't understand what idiot designed an airport without backup connections.
> Do they seriously not have a backup connection?
That was the backup connection. The primary failed, and concurrently the backup had been severed by a construction crew.
If you don't regularly test your backup, you don't have a backup.
Useful aphorism in general, not terribly applicable in this case. Even if it had been tested regularly, it was cut around the same time the primary failed. Regular testing doesn't stop construction crews from cutting a line.
A more useful comment might have been to say something about the depth of the backup, having only one backup connection not being enough or something.
The primary was being inspected and the secondary failed, there were redundant systems.
> I don't understand what idiot designed an airport without backup connections.
I have literally spraypainted the pavement and wall - "One fibre goes here, and down on the corner there, the other fibre goes there" - just to ensure a good separation of routes. I want the pinch point to be within the rack that the routers sit in.
I don't get why an airport can't do similar.
That airport did have two redundant connections, this was a swiss cheese failure where one was under maintenance and the other was severed by an independent event.
> one was under maintenance
So they didnt have a redundant connection. They had 1 live one that was severed.
I'm not sure I've ever laughed at a headline from a Hacker News post before.
I'd like to have some old computer accessories in home office.
Is it the last of the truly air-gapped federal agencies?
No. DOD still has a lot of air-gapped systems, some for legitimate reasons, and many out of momentum or lack of understanding of how networks work.
If it aint broke don't fix it
In my carreer I have seen plenty of system integrations working on ftp'ing request response documents to file folders on "SaaS" systems while the SV boys were considering SOAP obsolete and overnight Cobol and RPG mainframes document sincs while they were waxing about microservises and noSQL.
This is a headline from 1996?
Next they will be migrating off Internet Explorer 6
What is this, a joke‽
alt link: https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/us-faa-says-phase-flo...