Tokyo says long goodbye to beloved floppy disks

guest · Oct 25, 2021

Tokyo says long goodbye to beloved floppy disks
Reliability cherished by bureaucrats, but maintenance fees had become a burden
October 23, 2021
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Tokyo-says-long-goodbye-to-beloved-floppy-disks

As Japan tries to bring more government functions into the digital age, local authorities in Tokyo are starting to leave behind the floppy disks they used for decades to store and move data.

Meguro Ward plans to put all work involving floppies and other physical storage media online in fiscal 2021, and Chiyoda Ward plans a similar transition within the next few years. Minato Ward moved its payment procedures from floppies to online systems in 2019.
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The disks "almost never broke and lost data," said Yoichi Ono, who is in charge of managing public funds for Meguro Ward. The ward has long saved information on payments to employees on 3.5-inch floppies to physically transport to the bank for processing.

This system survived even after floppies themselves disappeared from the market. Sony, one of the earliest suppliers of 3.5-inch floppy disks, stopped making them a decade ago.
Floppies can be reused, and the ward had plenty on hand, giving it little reason to deal with the time and expense of upgrading to new systems.
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The prospect of spending roughly an extra $5,000 a year pushed the ward to make the switch for all work involving outside systems. "This will save us the time of having each department save data to floppy disks and carry them around," Ono said.

A full switch to digital services remains a long way off, given the time that will be needed to handle tasks such as digitizing paper contracts.
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NormanF · Oct 25, 2021

I didn't know floppy disks were still around! Brings back memories.

aztony · Oct 25, 2021

I thought floppies were dead and buried everywhere, except maybe the Smithsonian.

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