20 Modern Systems Still Running on Old Tech

Behind the bright displays of many aircraft cockpits, information can be crawling along wires at speeds that sound almost comical beside home Internet service. ARINC 429, an avionics data-bus standard adopted in 1977, operates at either 12.5 or 100 kilobits per second. Its job is not to stream movies. It carries carefully defined pieces of information between aircraft systems, including navigation data, sensor readings, and equipment status. That simplicity helped make the standard extraordinarily durable.