[skissane]

> Turns out that in 1998, SFMTA had the latest cutting edge technology when they installed their automatic train control system.

> "We were the first agency in the U.S. to adopt this particular technology but it was from an era that computers didn't have a hard drive so you have to load the software from floppy disks on to the computer," said Mariana Maguire, SFMTA Train Control Project.

> SFMTA's train control system relies every morning on 5 inch floppy disks.

This doesn’t make any sense. 5.25-inch floppy disks and no hard disks was not “cutting edge technology” in 1998. It arguably wasn’t even “cutting edge technology” in 1988

[sitharus]

It would make sense if it was 1978 which seems to be when the metro system was being brought online, but ATC was definitely 1998.

Perhaps ATC was layered on top of the original signalling system, which is the part that uses the floppy disks?

[jcgrillo]

Not cutting edge personal computer technology, obviously, but was it not cutting edge train control technology? TFA isn't making any claims about PC technology. If I had to come up with a computer system that needs to last O(1 century) I'd avoid disks, I think.