PDP-11 Still Working In Nuclear Plants - For 37 More Years

Taco Cowboy writes "Most of the younger /. readers never heard of the PDP-11, while we geezers have to retrieve bits and pieces of our affairs with PDP-11 from the vast warehouse inside our memory lanes." From the article: "HP might have nuked OpenVMS, but its parent, PDP-11, is still spry and powering GE nuclear power-plant robots and will do for another 37 years. That's right: PDP-11 assembler programmers are hard to find, but the nuclear industry is planning on keeping them until 2050 — long enough for a couple of generations of programmers to come and go." Not sure about the OpenVMS vs PDP comparison, but it's still amusing that a PDP might outlast all of the VAX machines.

Comments

That's just cruel

[Chrisq]

... until 2050 — long enough for a couple of generations of programmers to come and go.

By their short lives I imagine that they must make them work in a high-radiation area.

Re:I cut my teeth on that CPU

[Cryacin]

At least they're not running nuclear power plants in action script. (ducks)

Re:If it ain't broke...

[SJHillman]

"Just because they weigh a hundred times more doesn't mean they are a hundred times more reliable."

But it is a hundred times more satisfying to shove it off a building when it misbehaves. At least, that's how it works with copiers.