IBM Mainframes, 8-Inch Floppies Power US Nuclear Arsenal

If it ain't broke, don't upgrade it? That mantra apparently applies to the computer systems that power parts of the US nuclear arsenal.

IBM Series/1 computers from the 1970s control intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear bombers, and tanker support aircraft, according to a Government Accountability Office report released this week. The computers use 8-inch floppy disks and are one of several IT systems in a number of federal offices that the GAO singled out as desperately in need of updating.

The military plans to phase out the 53-year-old Series/1 computers by the end of 2017, according to the GAO report. Despite the costs of maintaining the aging infrastructure, the Defense Department said it had no urgency to replace it earlier.

"This system remains in use because, in short, it still works," Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Valerie Henderson told the AFP.

Top honours for the oldest federal government IT system still in use go to the Treasury Department, which stores taxpayer account information on IBM mainframe computers that are approximately 56 years old. The department has no plans to replace them.

The Obama administration is doing what it can to set an example for other agencies to modernise IT infrastructure after inheriting a White House plagued with decades-old computers, monochrome printers, and Wi-Fi dead spots.

"We've been trying to get that straight for the next group of folks, because it is an old building, and so there's a lot of dead spots where Wi-Fi doesn't work," Obama told CBS in February.

More than 75 per cent of the federal IT budget goes to operations and maintenance, according to the GAO. President Obama's fiscal year 2017 budget request for IT was more than $US89 billion. "Given the magnitude of these investments, it is important that agencies effectively manage their IT [operations and management] investments," the report says.