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Comment by unsignedqword | Hacker News Reader

The article mentions that the oldest actual computer in use by the government regards nuclear strike operations, and that it's actually being upgraded sometimes next year. I find this...concerning? Says they're upgrading terminals and data storage, which seems pretty harmless, but I feel like in terms of nuke-launching tech, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" is a pretty good philosophy to live by.

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60 Minutes toured a missile silo a few years ago show control computers from the 50s and 60s. It looked just like computers in TV shows from that era. There appeared to be a few jury-rigged gizmos demonstrating how hard it is to repair such.

Ive heard stories of some older Russian aircraft still containing vaccum tubes. And I imagine the oldest US craft, even the old space shuttles, not that far ahead.

How do you know it ain't broke?

True, but I'd at least regard such a system as likely fairly fault tolerant, considering its been in use for 50+ years.

I'm sure plenty of replacement parts of EOL by decades. Heck, the terminal upgrades alone are likely necessitated by the fact CRTs are no longer manufactured in quantity.

I was running into this doing requisitions for a precision approach radar that was commissioned in the late 60s. By this point, all of the part suppliers had long since moved on to other things or gone out of business, and the usual avenue became "Order the part, and wait for enough air stations to also need the same part. Then, and only then, will the government commission a custom fabrication job to manufacture the parts needed for an obscene amount of money."

Two results happened. First, we ended up paying $15k for parts that were worth $500 because that's what it costs to set up a fabrication job when you only want 50 circuit boards. Second, we did whatever the hell we could to avoid having to spend $15k on a $500 part, and the radar was therefore held together with gummy bears, duct tape, and black magic. It was a clusterfuck, and we were always putting out fires with that thing, sometimes literally.

Horrifyingly, the military has never been able to create a better PAR, which is why it's been around for so damn long.

I got out in 2014, and last I've heard, they just re-extended the EOL for the radar to 2025. They'll probably be sending out lance corporals with binoculars and walkie-talkies to yell "TOO HIGH" and "TOO LOW" by then.

> Horrifyingly, the military has never been able to create a better PAR, which is why it's been around for so damn long.

Not enough pork involved for a Congresscritter to push it and not flashy enough for a flag officer to do so.

The question is - Is it fault tolerant in a 'fail safe' or 'fail deadly' direction?

Which way is "safe"? Is it considered "safe" to fire the weapon when needed for retaliation or to not fire the weapon and accept annihilation?

It may seem fault tolerant due to survivor bias.

Don't worry, patches will now be released at the end of every week to fix the bugs.

Say goodbye to your weekends, you mean.

I knew someone who worked on crypto to secure some of those systems back in the day. But because of that area they couldn't tell me much about it.

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