Get rid of floppy disks

Some aspects of Japan such as advances in robotics, high-speed trains and ultra-fast internet connections might make us think that this Asian country is “Live in the future”. However, a segment of its society has long maintained a strong connection with the technologies of the past.

In an increasingly interconnected world where cloud services are becoming more complete and robust, cash payments, faxing documents and submitting forms on floppy disks remain a reality in Japan. Now, everything seems to indicate that the country is finally leaving some practices behind.

Japan says goodbye to floppy disks

Reuters says Taro Kono has announced that the government has finally “Floppy war won”. Thus the Minister of Digital Affairs of Japan celebrated the culmination of a long struggle to almost completely eliminate the use of this obsolete storage medium from national administrative processes.

Floppy disk use had become so pervasive in the government that eliminating them overnight was an impossible mission. As if to have a frame of reference, two years ago, nearly 1,900 procedures mentioned managing physical media floppy disk one of two CD.And this was a problem in promoting modern alternatives.

As such, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan recognized some provisions were unclear. For example, many documents can be sent via cloud platforms, but the people or authorities involved usually opt for the safer thing to avoid inconvenience: the use of floppy disks.

The country’s digital agency, for its part, worked hard to update the regulations with the aim of modernizing all affected provisions. Ultimately, at the end of last June, only one regulation required the presentation of documentation on media such as floppy disks: the one related to vehicle recycling.

Japan has taken the final step to get rid of floppy disks, but this magnetic storage medium was initially introduced Early 1970s (in its original 8-inch version), still survives in some critical systems such as some San Francisco trains or some Boeing 747s.

Images | Behnam Norouzi | SJ

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