Let's get the elephant in the room out of the way first:
If you're born after the year 2000, you have no idea what a floppy disk is having gone obsolete some time in 1998.
A floppy disk is this:
Yeah, it was a real thing, not an emoji.
Developed in the late 60s, the storage of these little beauties was a standard 1.44MB. To equal 1 Gigabyte, you'd need about 900 or so of them.
Keeping in mind 8-bit images were cutting edge at the time.
So why did the U.S. keep their nuclear payload capable of destroying all life on Earth on this outdated tech?
For the simple reason that the systems were not connected to the internet and are secure.
Hackers can't break into a floppy disk.
You can't hack something with no IP address.
You'd need to infiltrate one of the high-security military bases to access the system.
The system - Strategic Automated Command and Control System (SACCS) - is still used. Although, the storage is a bit more up to date according to spokesman David Faggard.
Time to upgrade because the outdated tech was protecting the world from complete and utter destruction?
No.
The upgrade was due to increasingly harder to find replacement parts for maintenance.
Try this on for size; The system operates using a 1970s IBM series-11 desktop computer and still costs $61 BILLION yearly.
The new storage solution is described as "highly secure solid-state digital storage solution" by Lieutenant Colonel Jason Rossi, who oversees daily operations of the SACCS.
Don't quote us but we're pretty sure they are using an external hard drive...
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