A report finds government computers comically ancient, but it may actually provide an advantage.

It’s as if the Federal Government is being run by by Hipsters. A Congressional report found that Federal Government facilities are still using turntables and magnetic tape.

The Defense Department’s Strategic Automated Command and Control System, which is used to send and receive emergency action messages to U.S. nuclear forces… is running on a 1970s IBM computing platform, and still uses 8-inch floppy disks to store data. “Replacement parts for the system are difficult to find because they are now obsolete,” GAO said… (full story)

As anyone who has ever collected antiques will tell you, it’s an expensive hobby. Around $60 billion is spent annually, keeping these relics functional. Finding parts for Government computers is getting as hard as finding music on MTV.

This should come as a surprise to no one. It’s pretty much understood that the Government isn’t always up on the latest things. Ironically, the computers used in US nuclear silos were state of the art, about time that Richard Nixon asked Elvis Presley to encourage the youth of America to stay off drugs (and kids were listening to Led Zeppelin).

We’ve seen multiple examples of the technology lapse over the past couple years. From the miserably botched roll-outs of Healthcare.gov to the inability of the NSA to open a terrorist’s government issued iPhone, bureaucrats have often demonstrated they move at the speed of dial-up. The problem is, they aren’t hiring the top IT graduates; because the best computer people, can’t pass a drug test. So Government technology remains as backwards as the President’s Blackberry.

But sometimes, things get old enough to become cool again. The technology is so out of step, that there might be advantages.

For one thing, only a few people know how to use it. The computer language the government uses, is as antiquated as Latin. Technicians who work on the computers have to go through special training, so they can unlearn everything they were taught in college. It’s reminiscent of how the US Army during WWII, used the few remaining people who spoke Navajo to thwart Japanese code breakers.

Getting a hacker to learn FORTRAN is like asking a kid to listen to your Beatles records. Which is actually a good thing. Because, if you can’t speak the language, you can’t hack the nuclear codes. The last thing we want, is some guy in a basement starting thermonuclear war, because his daddy never loved him enough.

There is also a durability issue. Those computers were overbuilt. I still have a couple eighties vintage computers lying around the house that work as good as new, and I can boot up anytime I want to play a game of Oregon Trail, or sort a couple dozen addresses alphabetically.

Just like hand crank Victrolas will be able to play records, well into the Apocalypse, retro computers are less susceptible to electromagnetic pulse. You can burn out a computer chip by shuffling your feet on the carpet, but you pretty much need to stick a transistor into a wall socket before it pops. (And it’s a pretty awesome pop.)

Of course, now that it’s a a good idea, the Government will do something else. It’s the way things always go. The uncool always stop doing things, right before they become cool again. When the last redneck in America cuts off his mullet, you’ll see mullets on the fashion runways of Paris.

Which is why this report is out there. It’s no coincidence that this report is coming out during budget negotiations. Congressmen and Senators running for re-election in November need to explain why fifty year old problems, need to be fixed by October.