Sometimes you read something and you can't quite believe it and then you read it again and get scared. This is what happened when I read through the United States Government Accountability Office's Report to Congressional Requesters about the need to update aging legacy systems.

This report outlines how some of the critical systems in the US government are running on outdated programming languages, hardware, and that the Strategic Automated Command and Control System (SACCS) still uses floppy disks!!!!!!! This aging equipment and software comes with a hefty price tag as its very costly to maintain. In fact, this report shows that of the $80 billion budget allocated to 26 government agencies, 61 billion, or close 76%, of that budget was used towards operations and maintenance.

The System that coordinates the United States's Nuclear Forces runs from a Floppy

The Department of Defense's Strategic Automated Command and Control System (SACCS) is the system that coordinates and controls the operational functions of the United States' nuclear forces. This includes intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear bombers, and tanker support aircrafts.

What is incredibly scary is that this system runs on an IBM Series/1 Computer and uses 8-inch floppy disks. Yes, we are not talking about 3.5" disks or even 5.25" disks. No, we are talking about 8" disks. The ones that look like this:

Different Disk Sizes

Source: Museum Of Obsolete Media

The crazy thing is that your smart phone is more powerful than the computer's that coordinate the United States' nuclear defense. Doesn't that just make you sleep better at night?

Government systems are programmed in costly-to-maintain Programming Languages

The report also detailed how many government systems are running on outdated programming languages that are costly to maintain. For example, the US Tax System is run off programs written in Assembly Language. To be honest, I am not sure if I should be impressed or scared about this. On one hand, Assembly is very quick and efficient, but on the other hand how the hell do you maintain something like this? The costs of maintaining and resolve issues in these systems must be incredibly high.

Furthermore, numerous government systems are programmed in Cobol. This has led the government to have to re-hire retired Cobol programmers in order to find people to maintain these systems. The maintaining of older technology and programming languages comes with a cost and the report states that the government "may pay a premium to hire staff or contractors with the knowledge to maintain outdated systems".