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Oldest Software Seen in Production?

Posted by Cliff on from the legacy-just-ain't-the-word-for-it dept.

Ian Bevan asks: "In my last job we were replacing a legacy system, written in COBOL and running on a Fujitsu mainframe since 1985 (it was a payroll application). A bespoke database application I wrote in 1989 was still being used, unmodified, last year. What's the oldest software you know of still in production? Anybody know of anything from the 70s, or even 60s ? What's it used for?" Has anyone seen software in production that is older than they are?

3 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. NASA by Nater · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Don't hold me to this, but I think some of the software on the Pioneer probes was written in the 1970's.

    --

    I like to play children's songs in minor keys.
    "We're all sons of bitches now." --J. Robert Oppenheimer

    1. Re:NASA by jpmkm · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Maybe even the late 60s. The pioneer probes were launched in the early 70s.

  2. If you think about it... by ameoba · · Score: 3, Insightful

    30 year old code shouldn't be a suprise, it should be taken as a counterexample to the "If bridges were designed like software..." argument. There are a lot of things that are in constant use that hold up to countless years of abuse.

    If you want to compare software to machines, there are plenty of things that've been arround longre than 20-30yrs. The B-52 bombers, originally built durring the cold war are flying over Afghanistan as we speak. I've seen machining equipment built in the 20s still in regular use at machine shops (granted, many of them have been supplanted by CNC gear, but they're still accurate & reliable). Some of the massive earthmoving equipment used in mining has been in 24/7 operation for 40-50 years.

    Or, if you consider software less of a physical thing, there are many abstraction that still work fine. The American government was established over 200 years ago, and, nitpicking asside, is still doing a damned good job. Mathematics and philosophy are considerably older, and most of it still valid today. Lets not forget that most of the planet practices religions that are over a millenia old.

    Compared to that, what is a 20yr old piece of software? I'm sure many of us would -love- to throw away the old COBOL running dinosaurs and replace them with something more modern, but weren't the greatest of the Medieval cathedrals the ones in which the designers stuck to the descisions of previous designers, rather than taking off on their own tangents?

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