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What's the Oldest Technology You've Used In a Production Environment?
itwbennett writes: Sometimes it's a matter of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it,' sometimes corporate inertia is to blame, but perhaps even more often what keeps old technology plugging away in businesses large and small is the sense that it does a single, specific job the way that someone wants it done. George R.R. Martin's preference for using a DOS computer running WordStar 4 to write his Song of Ice and Fire series is one such example, but so is the hospital computer whose sole job was to search and print medical images, however badly or slowly it may have done the job. We all have such stories of obsolete tech we've had to use at one point or another. What's yours?
I'm working on a project to replace a legacy system that runs on Fox DB and is completely DOS based. It's so old that it can't actually be run on desktop systems without a VM because it's 8bit and all of our current systems are 64Bit.
I use RS-232 (essentialy a 50 years old technology) regularly to read data from lock-ins, picoammeters, and various other instruments. It works well enough, I don't need extra fast reading (the measurement itself is the slowest part). It's not always a smooth ride, but overall it's pretty reliable and straightforward.
We have phone systems and network switches that have serial, still configured for 9600-8-N-1. We have modems connected to the phone system devices that can be called via POTS line to do maintenance if all other methods fail, and since we have all of six people to take care of eighty sites we'd really rather not go for a drive if we can avoid it. I also happen to have a WYSE-52 on my desk that I have connected to a switch console port at 38400; If something breaks the workstation VLAN for whatever reason, I can still maintain the network through a different VLAN through this terminal.
I used to work at a place that handled paging (like, literal TNPP and TAP paging) and we had Digi serial multiplexers with 24 serial ports for connecting to 24 individual modems for paging, fax, and other low-speed services. There were lots of customers still using that technology too; we tried to migrate to Equinox and their digital modems (basically a T1 that emulated 24 modems) but they had trouble with extremely short-length low-baud connections causing lockups. It was literally better to have a huge room full of equipment because it wouldn't crash instead of a single rack full of PCI cards that would constantly have port errors.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
My last two jobs were both still using 3270 terminal emulators to connect to CICS systems. I understand that's still fairly common in both government and industry.
SCO Unix runs GREAT inside of VMWare... don't ask me how I know this, as I get back to the server room to beat the shit out of some random OS that isn't performing well... again....
I lobbied to end the requirement for an examination of the ability to decode Morse code with your ear and brain. Until 2007, the U.S. Federal Government required it before they would license all but the lowest grade of Amateur Radio hobbyists.
As part of my lobbying effort, I successfully passed a test for receiving code at 20 words per minute, and then subsequently refused to use the code on the air. 20 WPM is so fast that you have to decode by the sound of each character, you don't have enough time to pick out the individual dots and dashes.
We won.
Bruce Perens.
The Pixar code base came from Lucasfilm, and went back to the 1970's. Some of that code is still in use.
Bruce Perens.
CSB time. I went to a community college the first 2 years it was open (Cuyamaca college, San Diego county if you're in the area). In my first semester computer class the instructor took us on a field trip, on a Saturday. There were 3-4 of us who agreed to go, we met on campus. Got in teach's pickup, he drove us to the midway district, into an industrial park, and into an alley going behind a bunch of buildings. There we saw a PDP-8 sitting by a door. Turns out the PDP-8 belonged to my instructor's old company and they were donating it to the school. Our "field trip" was providing muscle to get the thing into the pickup truck, back to school, then into the computer lab.
/CSB
Used that PDP-8 for the next 2 years, it was the only computer they had.
I'm currently converting ~140K SLOC of JOVIAL to pre-standard C++ that needs to compile on gcc 2.96 for VxWorks 5.5. Good times :(
They seem to only be talking about IT stuff, which is a shame, because Slashdot is much bigger than that. For awhile we were using a General Radio Megaohm Bridge that uses vacuum tubes, but I'm certain I've also run tests using a Variac from the 1950's.
As far as old IT stuff (*sigh*) up until a few years ago we were using some old Commodore SX64s to do some of the testing. Until about a year ago there were a bunch of PC-XTs at test stations out in the lab but those are gone now. The main life tests still run on 386 and 486 boxes because the Test Engineer can't be moved off of using his GWBASIC programs to run the stepper motor controllers and log results. I was setting up a test one one of those rigs today.
I took the SX64s home when they were being scrapped out, so I have four or five of those waiting to be tested, refurbished, then probably sold or traded to other collectors.
Oh, LANtastic?
I was supporting a NetWare 2.15c server with a DCB inproduction. In 2003. The 40MB drives were in addition to IDE drives internal to the server chassis, and were deemed untouchable. Separate UPS, no one believed they would spin up again if they lost power. No one ever told me what was on those drives.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
One of the first programs I had to modify was a COBOL program written in 1968. Over time, the source code had gone missing. I tracked down a yellowed, falling apart compile listing, and realize the program had never been copied off cards. It was also written in backward indentation, where command lines start at the beginning, and control lines like IF statements are indented. This allows you to move the working lines around. I ended up typing in the code from the compile listing, and ended up only missing 4 periods. Of course, when I got it working, I then had to make the requested change.
I work on the 12 meter radio telescope on Kitt Peak. It was built in the mid sixties, refitted with a new dish in 1982, and replaced last year with an ALMA prototype antenna. We still use the old filter bank spectrometers. They were built in 1973-4. This item.
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
Reminds me of the time I was working with an older engineer and we needed to know the current coming out of a variac. I went to fetch my digital ammeter and when I came back found he had looped a piece of wire around the output leads and connected it to an analog meter. When I said let's use my meter it will be more accurate he said "I know how this works" (pointing to his setup) ".. and I don't know how that works" (pointing to my digital meter). I have to admit, he won that round.
That would be my oldest machine - the MK113 Torpedo FCS, basically a Really Fancy version of the WWII era TDC. The first entered service with USS Thresher in 1960, and the last left service when USS Kamehameha was decommissioned in 2003. Quite a run for a machine whose core functionality came from an analog computer directly descended from a 1930's design.
And exactly what were people committing into in 1980? :O
RCS was released in 1982, but SCCS goes back to 1972. In the latter part of the 70s it was dominant and available on IBM OS/360 systems and letter on AT&T Unix System III and V. It was not terribly difficult to move data from SCCS to RCS when it moved to a dominant system.
So managing a code base going back to 1980 is not at all unreasonable.
Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer, Retired
Many airlines, including some very large ones, use a CICS application called Maxi-Merlin to manage aircraft maintenance planning, compliance recording, material requirements, order management, and warehouse operations. At least one airline in particular is still actively developing new features with a large development team each with their own expertise of a particular module of the system. Maxi-Merlin is still used not because no one understands it and how to replace it, but because it is extremely expensive and complex to migrate a fleet of aircraft off of one maintenance ERP system onto another, while the business builds familiarity with it and gets FAA/EASA signoff, even with one of the many modern COTS systems.