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Oldest Supported Software?
Dave Santek writes "In development since the early 1970s, the McIDAS [Man computer Interactive Data Access System] software celebrated its 30th anniversary in October 2003. McIDAS is used to integrate and visualize weather information. The software was originally run on a Datacraft /5 and has gone through 4 major hardware configuration changes over the last 30 years. It is a supported software package that remains in use at more than 100 locations worldwide. A history of the first 25 years (pdf) is available. A freeware version of the software is also available."
Air Traffic Control Software: Automated Radar Terminal System (ARTS). The Plain View displays (by Raytheon) in the early '70s had an anticipated lifetime of 1015 years; those in the centers today are now at least 10 years past this estimate.
These displays fail regularly--according to controllers and technicians. At each en route center, which may have 30 to 60 PVDs in operation, it is not unusual to replace two to four of these units a day. When a PVD goes dark, the controller at that station rushes to another screen and urges the controller there to alter his or her display to include aircraft previously tracked on the failed display.
PVDs slipping out of adjustment also cause the size and clarity of the alphanumeric type they display to vary--fuzzy type makes controllers confuse 3s and 8s, which can lead to errors, an Indianapolis controller told IEEE Spectrum. And the units themselves are unstable. Their aging ceramic connectors are brittle and falling apart. Insulation on the wires is brittle, too. The vibration caused in moving a display, as is necessary when a replacement must be brought in, often disables it when fragile connections are broken.
Meanwhile, the Host and ARTS computers that drive the displays are problematically obsolete as well. The Host computer computes radar tracks, maintains a database of flight plans, and issues safety warnings--such as a conflict alert, when two craft are in danger of violating separation standards, and a minimum safe altitude warning, when an aircraft is at risk of hitting terrain. It contains half a million lines of Jovial code and assembly language that was first installed in 1972 and ported from IBM 9020 onto IBM 3083 computers, starting in 1985.
But Host has at most only 16MB of RAM, a serious limitation. And it badly needs replacing. (The ARTS computers in the Tracons are also severely limited in memory, but those are scheduled for replacement.) "The Host software is our biggest problem," a controller from Chicago told Spectrum. "There are so many patches, no one knows how it works. We can't change anything; no one dares touch it, because if we break it, we're gone."
In the mid-'80s, a multibillion dollar effort was started to update both the en route centers and the Tracons by replacing their displays and computers with networked workstations. (Airport towers use feeds from Tracon computers for radar tracking of airborne craft; they use separate surface-monitoring equipment for aircraft on the pavement.) That 10-year effort failed and has, for the most part, been abandoned. Called the Advanced Automation System, the program was sunk by unrealistic specifications and human factors difficulties, among other problems. New efforts to help controllers and pilots are under way, but have yet to make an impact on the present system. Here's the rest of the story from MIT
If you look in the latest Linux Journal though you'll see that Linux has made inroads in this area.
Strictly speaking, it qualifies as "old" since let's be real - Micosoft software hasn't changed much since the late Eighties.
...and still unsurpassed.
There's an Asteroids machine in this pizza place down the street, that count?
Banaaaana!
I still sometimes enter in the code for lunar lander on my 1975 HP-25 RPN calculator...
;)
That is the oldest software I support
~8^]
void main(){printf("Hello World!\n");}
The Integrated Data Retrieval System had been part of the American tax administration since the mid 60s. It's not 40 years old yet, but it probably will be before it is replaced.
It may not be just, but it is fair, and that is more important.
Contrary to what many slashdot readers seem to think, election coding is non-trivial, encompassing variations in laws and tradition in virtually every county of every state in the US. Since execution time is not an issue, and accuracy is, emulation and translation make lots of sense.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
I'm not surprised they're failing if they're at least 1025 years old!!
Seriously, though, this is the kind of situation that really scares me. Rarely is such a problem solved with money alone -- a project of this scale and importance needs to be supported by the best.
The IT industry is characterised by too many enthusiasts and too few professionals.
NASA still runs software, to this day, from the 1960s due to funding cuts and that fact that it "still works," much of it on the same computers from the 1960s.
In fact, most of this software is so old it actually can no longer be maintained because the people who wrote it are DEAD, and modern programmers who replaced the retirees can't make heads or tails of all the spaghetti code within. There's all kinds of fascinating data from the golden age of space exploration that we could still use, but it's in proprietary, decayed backup formats in proprietary structures.
If they started using Linux and open standards now, though, 30-40 years from now, they won't be having this problem, as Linux will still be around then -- and the rest will be in the dustbin of history.
30 years is a long time for a software project to evolve. The question, however, is how much of the original code remains today. Lots of software, especially stuff that changes fast, is this way - I'm sure that not much of the Linux 0.01 code remains in the 2.6.0 tree. It's just a matter of replacing things one piece at a time (or completely rewriting things, in some cases).
IBM mainframe operating systems have been around since the mid 1960s and are still being supported and updated. VM, first called CP/67, then VM/370, then VM/SP, then VM/ESA and now zVM has been around since 1967. Some such as DOS (1965?) are even older but I mentioned VM since its my favourite :-)
The software may not have changed much, but the support sure has. If you are a corporation, and you make an operating system, that's the OS, what's needed for the computer to run applications, there is no excuse for dropping support for it. Ever.
Yes, I know of places where Windows 3.1 is still used (legacy database anyone?), and problems still arise. Even in 2003, I have troubleshot Windows 98, 95 and 3.1. And I'm not trying to be all high and mighty about Open Source, RedHat is putting their customers through the same bullshit.
To make the all too common analogy, if you have a car, and 5 years from now it breaks down, you bring it to a mechanic, he says "sorry, this model isn't supported anymore, time to upgrade!", what the hell do you say to that? The problem of software companies to stop supporting their products is ridiculous. If you're going to make something, do it right, don't pussyfoot around making a good product, and at least have the balls to admit to your mistake and fix it when the shit jumps off. Screw you all software engineers. Where the hell is my abacus?
However, I believe that a version of IBM's DITTO was available on System/360 in 1965. I've not been able to confirm this, though.
That's a terrible analogy. If your car breaks down five years after you bought it, and you return it to the dealer, do you know what he's going to say? "You only have a five-year warranty on parts and labor. Go find a mechanic." The mechanic is much more akin to service-oriented companies like Progeny who are offering commercial support for products that have been EOLed.
Strictly speaking, it qualifies as "old" since let's be real - Micosoft software hasn't changed much since the late Eighties.
Sure it has! They have changed "edit" "options" to "view options" in the pull down menus. Win95 there was a "find" fuction that has since changed to "search" however f is still the hot key for it. And the names of their products have changed as well. Windows explorer, Internet explorer, Microsoft Messenger, Windows Messenger. Lots and lots of changes.
Microsoft - Now where did my documents go today?
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
I went to an interesting conference by a guy named Phillipe Krouchten from Rational (or should I say IBM Rational now?) who was heading their Vancouver division studying software engineering stuff. From my understanding he is the father of the RUP (Rational Unified Process).
Canada basicly had the same problem as the US with an aging air traffic control system and basicly at the same time they started doing mostly the same thing. And a few years later they discovered that they where not advancing much, so they called in that guy who at the time worked as a consultant and he is supposed to have basicly turned aroudn the whole project and completed it..
Anyways, the interesing point of his conference was on iterative VS waterfall processes. At first everyone though that the "waterfall" approach was right. First write a good specification, then code, then test, then release.. But it was discovered that it didnt work. So Kruchten basicly transformed the project to use iterative techniques were they would go over 3 months of specify, code, test, and they do it again until the project was completed...
The part that I dont understand was... Why arent americans buying the Canadian system?
This wonderful old operating system was introduced in 1967. It's still around and still supported as far as I know. It grew out of Project MAX as did Unix and Multix.
FORTRAN is perhaps not the oldest supported software of all but it pre-dates Unix, McIDAS and ARTS and is still widely used and supported today. Some common utilities, widely used today, were adapted and used in the first Unix. Research for all this dates back to the early 60's.
Is there anything from the 50's or earlier that is still supported today? Surely someone at IBM must know...
Lots of software is still in use every day. The algorithms anyways. Quicksort was from the 60's, the numerous algorithms Dijkstra gave us. Many, many more as well.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
Insurance Companies are still running mainframe systems to track your annuities and policies that have been under active development and support since the 1960's.
Systems like lifecomm, all writen in assembly are still worked on.
-L
Old truckers never die, they just get a new peterbilt
Canada started working on its replacements long after the FAA but it looks like we'll get there sooner. Like the FAA, we initially contracted a system called CAATS that would have done most of the things proposed by AAS. Somewhere in the mid-90's it became obvious that the proposal was pie-in-the-sky and the contractors would never be able to deliver -- every time the players sat down to review the situation they ended up reducing the goals of the project and delaying the acceptance date. Since the existing systems were starting to fall apart we switched to off-the-shelf systems (HP Unix boxes with Sony 2kx2k displays) running software that emulated the old vector tube displays. The main computers were essentially unaware that they were talking to modern hardware. The privatized ATC system also started rewriting the host software to run under Unix, and will be replacing the old hardware in 2004-2005. At that point we will have a new host emulating an old host, talking to new displays emulating old displays. Once a bug-for-bug clone is operational, we will be able to look at modernizing the software to take advantage of the increased computing power available. The original CAATS project has been scaled back to the point where it's little more than a shim layer that manipulates data passing between the host and the displays.
The British have already purchased a few ATC support systems from Canada and are considering more of them. Since they are running on similar hardware, there's a good chance that we will see common software running on both sides of the Atlantic by the end of the decade.
The FAA has looked at some of our systems. As the parent post said, however, they no longer know how their own system works and are terrified at the prospect of changing just a portion lest the whole house of cards falls down.
BTW, with reference to the topic at hand, we are just now replacing our 30-year-old ATC weather system. The original OIDS system ran on an Interdata-70 system with core storage and tape I/O. The only significant changes in the last 30 years was the switch to TTL memory and the addition of a floppy controller (that simulates a tape device). We still boot the machine using the binary switches on the front panel.... The replacement system runs on a network of NT4 machines and has been installed at about half of our facilities. I'm hoping the old system is donated to a computer museum.
They asked me to rewrite a piece of production software, so I did. Done, let's move on.
A year later, they asked me to rework it.
Done, let's move on.
3 years later, I was still working on the software--adding functions, changing screens, etc.
I left the company, and hired on with a consulting firm.
2 Years later, they call me back to help with a validation of...you guessed it!
5 Years after that, they called my boss. We're halfway through a rewrite, and we need help. Hello...who do we have that can do this? Yup.
After I die, these fuckers are going to hold a seance and ask my ghost to rewrite this app!
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
You guys have more airports and more aircraft but also more sectors and more controllers. The net effect is that the number of flights handled at any one display is roughly constant (and limited by human capabilities).
The real reason the FAA isn't using the Canadian solution is that it's not complete. As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, we are replacing systems one component at a time using emulation on modern hardware. Our components aren't interchangeable with your components due to differences in system architecture. They might do well to consider following our approach to the problem, but I doubt the resulting systems will ever converge.
IBM IMS is over 35 years old (the first version dates from August 14, 1968, the same day Halle Berry was born). It's still supported.