Vax, PDP/11, HP3000 and Others Live On In the Cloud

judgecorp writes: Surprisingly, critical applications still rely on old platforms, although legacy hardware is on its last legs. Swiss emulation expert Stromasys is offering emulation in the cloud for old hardware using a tool cheekily named after Charon, the ferryman to the afterlife. Systems covered include the Vax and PDP/11 platforms from Digital Equipment (which was swallowed by Compaq and then HP) as well as Digital's Alpha RISC systems, and HP's HP3000. It also offers Sparc emulation, although Oracle might dispute the need for this.

Comments

The value is the software

[mcrbids]

Up until about the year 2000, I ran a small hardware shop for customers. Gradually, it became clear to me that the value of computers isn't in the hardware, it's in the software and data that they hold.

In response, I reinvented myself and co-developed a company that hosts data for (now) hundreds of clients and tens of thousands of users. Comparing the total hardware value of all our servers to our annual revenue puts hardware expenses (roughly) in petty cash. Servers host a *lot* of data, it's the data and the software used to manage the data that's valuable.

on last legs?

[iggymanz]

Alpha is still supported by HP, and OpenVMS on Alpha supported until 2018.

The emulation by Charon of Sparc is 32 bit, not the current 64 bit one. However, you can run 32 bit Sparc code on 64 bit sparc.

Re:This shit is why managers think the cloud works

[attemptedgoalie]

That would be a reasonable thing to do if it bought time.

Year 5? Maybe it's time to hold off on the shiny stuff for a little bit and do the busy work of shoring up the business.

Year 10? Two or three stupid multi-million dollar projects scrapped, but still no work on the billing system? It might be time to reconsider priorities. Or at least consider doing both?

Year 15? I get the feeling that my ability to configure and maintain a resilient system has created a monster. Management assumes it will run forever, and gets to be wined/dined by consulting firms to put up stupid projects.

If we ever finished ANY of the projects we decided to do instead of fixing the old stuff, it would be one thing. But to continue to retry, and fire consultants every year is just wasteful. (no, we're not the government)