Some technologies are reluctant to pass away. One of them is the floppy disk. Yes, that reliable —and old— storage unit, which if you are over 30 years old you may have used it more than once, is still used in some offices in Japan and, to mention another For example, it is an essential component for installing critical updates on Boeing 747s.
When we talk about Japan it is impossible not to imagine a country that is at the forefront of technology. However, the land of companies like Sony, Toyota, Nintendo, Canon and many others tends to cling to the old ways . Precisely, continuing to use a storage medium that has been out of production for more than a decade is proof of this.
According to Nikkei, the Tokyo government, which has been trying to get away from floppy disks for some time, now wants to say goodbye to this obsolete technology. Some companies are evaluating a kind of fines for those who use this type of support. Mizuho Bank, located in the Meguro district, said it will charge an additional 50,000 yen (378 euros) to its customers if they continue to use them.
Meanwhile, in Japan floppy disks are used to pay employees
Credit: Unsplash State public funds officials operating at Mizuho Bank brought employee payment information on floppy disks to the bank for processing. One of them, consulted by the aforementioned media, said that they continued to use them because “they almost never broke and lost data.” But for the bank that was enough and they decided to take an unusual measure.
However, the transition at Meguro is well under way. If everything continues at this rate, the floppy disks will be completely discontinued this same 2021 . But the outlook is not so good in Chiyoda, where many Japanese government offices still use floppy disks for their daily tasks and the end of this type of storage unit could only come in 2026.
Sony produced the first 3.5-inch floppy disk in 1981. This magnetic device was quickly adopted by many public and private organizations in Japan. However, the company stopped selling them in 2011 in favor of more advanced storage propositions, such as USB sticks and DVDs.
Nowadays, talking about DVD is also a thing of the past. Data that is not transferred by USB drives is sent by cloud storage services which, with their pros and cons, are one of the most widely used methods. Now that floppy disks seem to be finally disappearing from Japan, the country has yet to take an important step away from fax machines.
