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The Japanese government, however, abandons floppy disks and CD-ROMs. He recently announced adjustments to legislation requiring the use of physical media formats for government submissions in spaces such as alcohol trading, mining, and aircraft regulation.
Japan’s Minister of Digital Transformation, Taro Kono, announced the “war on floppy disks” in August 2022. Prior to the recent legislative changes, approximately 1,900 government procedures required the use of obsolete disk formats, floppy disks, CDs, and MiniDiscs, for submissions. of citizens and businesses.
Kono announced intentions to amend regulations to support online submissions and cloud data storage, changing requirements that go back several decades, as noted recently by Japanese news site SoraNews24.
On January 22, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) announced that it had amended 34 ordinances to eliminate the requirements for floppy disks. According to a Google translation of a Jan. 23 article from Japanese technology website PC Watch, the ministry has eliminated floppy disk and CD-ROM requirements for ordinances, adding similar ones to labor, energy and safety regulations. weapons production.
METI’s announcement, according to a Google translation, highlighted the “numerous provisions of the Japanese government stipulating the use of fast recording means such as floppy disks related to the methods of request and notification,” as well as “situations that obstruct the implementation of online procedures. “
Floppy disks became commercially available in 1971 through IBM. They have evolved over the decades, most notably with the release of the 3. 5-inch floppy disk in 1983 through Sony. With increasing use and a peak in the ’80s and ’90s, floppy disks may simply not compete with CD-ROMs, USB flash drives, and other more complex garage bureaucracy created in the late ’90s. Sony, the last floppy disk maker still standing, stopped making floppy disks in 2011. .
The floppy disks are not supplied to meet the maximum needs of the current generation, with a maximum storage capacity of 1. 44 MB. However, they are used regularly by Japanese government agencies, leading to complications. For example, in 2021, it was reported that Tokyo police had lost a pair of floppy disks containing data on 38 applicants for public housing.
Japan’s reliance on generation is a factor that METI is addressing, however, reports have noted resistance from some government agencies. This includes local governments and the Ministry of Justice resisting moving to cloud-based management systems, according to the Japan News newspaper. Japan is ranked 32nd out of 64 economies in the Institute for Management Development’s (IMD) 2023 Global Digital Competitiveness Ranking, which, according to the IMD, “measures the ability and willingness of 64 economies to adopt and explore virtual technologies as a key driving force. “of economic transformation” in business, government, and society at large.
Some have attributed Japan’s slow shift away from older technologies to its good fortune in improving the power of analog technology. Government bureaucracy was also cited as a factor.
However, Japan is not the only entity that retains the floppy disk. Although a single photograph is now enough to fill a floppy disk, various industries, such as embroidery, medical devices, avionics, and plastic molding, still have it. Even Unidos. La the U. S. Air Force stopped using 8-inch floppy disks in its missile launch formula in 2019. And last year, we talked about a Chuck E. Cheese from Illinois that used a 3. 5-inch floppy disk for its animatronic formula.
US-based Floppydisk.com told The Register that Japan’s rule changes shouldn’t endanger the business. Its Japanese customers are “mostly hobbyists and private parties that have machines or musical equipment that continue to use floppy disks,” Tom Persky, who runs the site, said. Floppydisk.com also sells data-transfer services but told The Register in 2022 that the bulk of revenue is from blank floppy disk sales. At the time, Persky said he expected the company to last until at least 2026.
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