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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.
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.
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.
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.