Japan this week eliminated all rules requiring using floppy disks for administrative functions, catching up 13 years after the nation’s producers made their final models.
The floppy disk, invented within the Nineteen Seventies, was as soon as ubiquitous in computing. Since then, different types of reminiscence, similar to flash drives and Web cloud storage, have taken over. Within the Nineteen Nineties, together with the cassette tape, it was tossed into the dustbin of out of date know-how.
However not in Japan. Whereas it’s well-known for its client electronics giants, robots and among the quickest broadband networks on the earth, the nation can also be wedded to floppy disks and different previous applied sciences, similar to fax machines and money.
Japan started transferring away from the storage units of the 1900s — plastic-coated magnetic disks — simply two years in the past, when Taro Kono, the nation’s digital minister, declared a “battle on floppy disks.”
When she noticed an image of a roadside billboard promoting an American most cancers clinic that learn, “If you already know what a floppy disk is, possibly it’s time to get a most cancers screening,” Kono responded on social media: “No, not essentially in Japan.”
Within the southern metropolis of Tsuwano, accounting division officers changed their stack of floppy disks solely in April 2023, in line with Nobuyuki Koto, one of many officers.
The town’s new database took a while to arrange, however the change was inevitable and the brand new system is quicker and extra correct, he stated.
A large spectrum of companies — mines, oil firms, retailers, liquor shops, purchasing malls — have been topic to completely different guidelines that required them to submit paperwork to regulators on diskettes.
Even after Sony, as soon as a serious producer of disks for the Japanese market, stopped producing them in 2011, greater than 1,000 legal guidelines, ordinances and directives requiring using floppy disks remained in impact, in line with the Digital Ministry.
On Wednesday, Kono declared victory in his battle. All these guidelines have been reviewed by lawmakers, submitted to public remark, voted on and repealed, he stated.
The final rule in drive was associated to the recycling of used autos and was repealed on June 28, he stated.
Exterior the federal government, some Japanese sectors usually are not keen to budge.
A lot of the conventional textile trade in a single space of Kyoto that makes gadgets similar to kimonos has not up to date its know-how since adopting floppy disks within the Eighties, stated Motoshi Honda, an analyst on the Kyoto Municipal Industrial Expertise Analysis Institute.
Every single day, Higo Financial institution, a regional monetary establishment on Kyushu island, processes about 300 floppy disks, which weigh practically 10 kilos, in line with Yusuke Murayama, a spokesman for the financial institution.
The financial institution has tried to steer clients nonetheless utilizing the drives to retailer their checking account info to alter codecs, telling them it might cease accepting them within the spring, he stated.
Floppy disks are nonetheless in use exterior Japan as effectively. They’re used within the embroidery and avionics industries, and till not too long ago, within the US nuclear arsenal.
In authorities, Kono’s work shouldn’t be over. He has indicated that he’s concentrating on fax machines, that are nonetheless extensively utilized in Japan, and has really useful switching to e mail.
In Tsuwano, the city whose accounting division stopped utilizing floppy disks final 12 months, the workplace fax remains to be typically the quickest option to ship info, stated Mr. Koto, the city clerk. Officers fax the names of deceased individuals to newspaper obituary departments and use the machines to contact native companies.
“Generally individuals don’t take note of emails,” Koto stated.
However even after lastly ditching the floppy disks, I missed some issues concerning the previous system.
“There was no threat of being hacked,” he stated. “Now we’ve got to watch out about knowledge safety.”