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Windows 3.1 Glitch Causes Problems At French Airport -- Wait, 3.1? (vice.com)
OakDragon writes: Microsoft has tamped down the earth on XP's grave, steered Internet Explorer toward the nursing home, and is trying to convince everyone Windows 10 is a bright up-and-comer. But in the Paris airport of Orly, a system called DECOR — which helps air traffic controllers relay weather information to pilots — is running on Windows 3.1. That program suffered a glitch recently that grounded planes for some time. The airport actually runs on a variety of old systems, including Windows XP and UNIX. Maintenance is a problem. There are only three people in Paris that work on DECOR issues, and one of them is retiring soon. Hardware is also an issue. "Sometimes we have to go rummaging on eBay to replace certain parts," said Fiacre. "In any case, these machines were not designed to keep working for more than 20 years."
Wouldn't virtualization be a viable option here?
- Henrik
- when the Shadows descend -
The airport actually runs on a variety of old systems, including Windows XP and UNIX
Unix isn't necessarily old, grasshopper.
Possibly for the physical machines needing parts from eBay issue. I think their real problem is still needing to run on Windows 3.1, and once you address that (hopefully moving to something much more modern) you can solve the legacy machine part as well.
This is why mainframe software lives on and on. It won't go out of fashion because it never was in fashion (except in the mid 60's) and there is so much mainframe code floating around that something or someone will always support it.
Table-ized A.I.
When I worked at the college bookstore warehouse in the early 1990's, we had an ancient IBM XT computer with dual 5.25" drives, an amber monitor and a dot matrix printer for printing shipping labels. It did that one job exceptionally well. I wouldn't be surprised if it still working there today.
Even if it is an old system, everyone knows you can easily fix things in UNIX by just clicking around the 3D interface for the right file which, when opened, will magically restore everything.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
You're both wrong. The reason why these machines weren't virtualized a while ago is that you have to make a lot of serial/parallel/ps2 conversions for ports that are truly physical. These are the types of programs that send specific voltage down the wires and expect exactly something specific in return. Lots of times you try to get those returns right and you simply can't anticipate the various bugs that amazingly show up just a few months after you convert. The real problem? Some are nearly unsolveable. You can't even figure out what the manufacturer/programmer was trying to achieve with their hardware interface so it's best to simply leave eveything as is. Half these people don't even work in computers anymore, let alone the vendor they were at in the 80's.
This coming from a guy who espouses VMs every day on a variety of systems.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
Fucking hell, I'd much rather run a mission-critical system on Windows 3.1 than Windows 10. Complexity means more potential points of failure. Windows 10 is doing so much stuff all the time that it makes a horrendous option for a machine that's chugging along doing one thing predictably and reliably. As long as it's isolated from the wild, once something works, one leaves a system the fuck alone.
If employment is an issue, employ more people. If hardware is an issue, virtualise on the most stable, simple possible hypervisor.
Viva la Windows
I have some old VB apps from the 3.1 era.
Although it may be technically possible to get them running, it's certainly not as easy as just copying the files across and running the program.
The fact that it is to do with weather suggests it interfaces with hardware of some kind or some external services. That's where you'll REALLY hit problems that just running as admin or renaming files or providing substitutes isn't going to fix.
Good luck getting a driver from the 3.1 era working on anything at all nowadays, even emulated. You would literally just be better off throwing it out, starting again and suffering the inconvenience.
Shoulda used TRS80 and arcnet.
We do third party support for out of warranty shit, The fun one over here (for us anyways) is MPE, Factories still run on this stuff, everyone who supports it is dying, it's hard to train new people to deal with the old way of doing things. But there is always a need somewhere. I don't see why Microsoft doesn't spend their resources for SAS for updates on antiquated software. They could probably hold their company indefinitely just running windows XP,7 or 8. The corporate licensing could compensate for security updates on the consumer side. In the early days upgrading all the time made sense. But how many different ways do you need to edit a document, or use Excel. These things are at a point. Windows is a stable operating system. Why should companies keep shelling out for new hardware, when for most people (not designers, or other power users) a core 2 duo is more than enough power. As to virutalizing, Not likely, and more importantly, not free. Windows 3.1 is 16 bit. If you didn't need access to any hardware (old network cards or specialty cards of any kind) there would be a shot. But this is pre HAL, it relies on BIOS for control of it's hardware. Also, even if you could virtualize, you would need to know the coders to fix all the bugs from the switch over. How do you do that in a live system that was pre-virtualization without making downtime. Downtime that isn't really available for an airport. Lastly, they have a system that "works" they would have to pay the capital investment to switch. (I know they should but hey they are French)
My favorite I've encountered about ATC systems is how the documentation lies. For example, how checksums are to be computed computed for a particular broad class of messages. The ARINC specs go into detail, with diagrams and everything about the computation process. But when you look at existing samples of code, they don't do this - they do this weird thing with a lookup table and uncalled-for bitshifts and the like. After spending a day or so studying the code, I finally figured out what they were trying to do - they were trying to "optimize" the algorithm in the specs. But in the process they made it deviate from what is actually supposed to be computed in about four different ways (plus, their "optimizations" don't actually save compute time, the simple math operations are faster than the lookup in the "precompute" table that they made).
So what do we do when we need to compute and check checksums? We use the wrong code, of course! It's what's "out in the wild", so who cares what the specs say we're supposed to use, it's what we have to use if we want checksums to ever to come up valid. Hopefully they'll eventually update the specs to reflect the reality.
Hello from Sputnik 2. I am receiving you.
That's not a long time at all. How old is our perfectly functional ordinary telephone? If computers are going to remain so maintenance intensive, the damn things will never really be any good. We have to be able to plug it in and ignore it for those 20 years, until the smoke leaks out
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Primarily because I'm betting the interface from that Windows 3.1 machine has some very specific DOS "driver" (TSR for us old-timers) that even Windows 95 would kill.
There were some very interesting hacks that could be done on a DOS box. I remember writing a TSR that bumped up the system timer to allow a finer grain on the timer events. It also sent out the "normal" system event to the rest of the OS so Windows would keep running.
The old system talks to hardware by sending specific voltage down analog connections (hot / cold pins). You would need to rebuild not only the system but all the systems it talks to (which could be a radar dish, an old school display, or anything else really).
This is not the same as just replacing the computer OS, you are asking to rebuild the entire hardware interface.
you have to make a lot of serial/parallel/ps2 conversions for ports that are truly physical.
I got a drawer full of adapters if you need any... Parallel, serial switches, you name it.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I remember trying ti buy a train ticket at the Charles de Gaulle airport station after flying in, in 2005. The queues were horrendous, and then one of ticket machines crashed, and all the people in queue swore and walked away. Except for me, since I recognised that the machine was running OS/2 Warp. By having the patience to wait a couple of minutes for it to reboot, I effectively jumped the queue. It took only three tries to get the machine to accept my credit card ... I hope their systems are a bit better today.
(this is not a
They're so cute when they're young. But so clumsy. Someday this little Windows 3.1 machine will grow up to be bigger stronger, just not any faster.
Good luck getting a driver from the 3.1 era working on anything at all nowadays, even emulated.
Exactly. What the young-uns don't know is that the 3.1 era drivers - especially for customized hardware - were often loaded before the Windows 3.1 kernel and involved changing the interrupt vectors out from underneath the kernel.
> [ Or emulate ] ....In a Browser.
TFA doesn't say. The software (including Win 3.1) may still be doing just what it always did correctly, which might explain why it hasn't been replaced.
Considering I still use a TRS-80 Model 100 on a regular basis (great keyboard!), Systems using Windows 3.1 do not surprise me.
Then again, I work for a bank, login to a mainframe and review COBOL code that dates back into 1980... So, yeah. I'm not surprised.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
32 bit disk access and 32 bit file access does not work that well in VM.
also this likely needs real serial parallel ports maybe even custom PCI / ISA cards. Can you do ISA pass though in VM? Will even a PCIe to ISA Bridge work with the cards out side of a VM?
Very true I'm sure. But I also believe in "where there's a will, there's a way"
I've been in these kinds of discussions. The Cost to figure out or build such a gap-device is too-large, or equal to "just rewrite it in modern tech." So everyone waits for another 10 years while the rewrite doesn't happen. Rather than picking it apart and refactoring a bit here and there - wait for the big bang!!
Every organization of any appreciable size has a room where they keep systems that were never upgraded and that hold data that has never been migrated to newer systems, but which they might need someday. Often, it's simply a matter of CYA, that no one wants to be the one who eliminated "System X".
Demand support nearly forever. When steam was replaced here in the mid 50s to late 60s, the average age of the replaced engines were around 50 years. The replacement engines are still in operation. The main reason is safety. When designing a new locomotive, the manufactor spend a fortune verifying the performance, which is then added to the price (naturally). On delivery of the first of its kind, it goes through a whole lot of testing and documentation to ensure that it's not too heavy for the track, works with the signal system and all that stuff. It takes time and cost millions. It's a lot cheaper once the type is certified, but they are still tested with non-free tests. This makes buying a used already certified engine quite attractive and as a result, spare parts are produced for many decades after production stopped. It's a demand from the railroads and supplying those parts makes manufactors trustworthy enough to be candidates for new engines expected to be used for at least 30 years, likely more than that.
Computers are way too short lived. Powerplants/grid, railroad signals, air traffic control and so on are hard to replace systems and once they have something working, they want to stick to their systems as long as possible. They make horrible contracts since they are unable to get the spare parts they need. The US army invented VHDL to give a description of the work of a chip and you would not be able to sell to the army without VHDL code. The idea is that if the army needs a replacement chip 20 years later and the original company went out of business, they can send the VHDL code to another company and say "make this chip using housing XYZ". That will ensure they don't have to scrap helicopters or whatever because a single chip went out of production. Civilians should be equally demanding for critical systems.
Probably needs a 20ma current loop to drive the ASR-33 Teletype.
The problem with outdated, obsolete technology is maintenance. Nothing lasts forever, and a 25-year-old PC computer is going to fail at some point. Then you're not going to be able to find working replacement components, though you might be able to get by for a while by replacing capacitors or something. But at some point you're going to have a lot of trouble finding people willing and able to work on this stuff and keep it going. And yes, the prices end up going through the roof because you have to find specialists to do this stuff, and they charge a fortune. A highly skilled electronics tech could probably get an old PC like that working again, but his hourly cost isn't going to be cheap; you could buy an all-new server-grade PC for less that it'd cost to get him to diagnose and repair a component failure.
O rly?
Ya rly.
^ . . . ^
/ o , o \
| ) : : : ( |
==w=w==
It's a perfect time for being wasted.
A perfect time to watch the stars.
- Burden Brothers, "Beautiful Night"
They are... However you will need to make new software to interact with it.
It is a case of Organic design, where a small app to make your job easier becomes a vital infrastructure, and was never designed for future upgrades.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I'm not your guy, pal
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Please don't, he will just spam this thread some more.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Is it really that common for the software to need such specific voltages and timing? How would you get to those values from software running on a PC?
I ask because I just got done implementing some very old vending hardware (some 1200 baud, some 9600 baud serial) and although they were ancient and badly documented, none really needed anything I'd call exotic.
Including support for some custom 8-but ISA bus cards? Good luck.
Have gnu, will travel.
I think we need *more* APK spam. As it is, there's a lot of it and it's a big nuisance, but no one's doing anything to fix the problem.
We need to have so much APK spam that the site becomes completely unusable. That's the only way the idiotic management around here is finally going to step up and do something about the problem.
A lot of times, you have to completely burn something down before you can rebuild something better.
"Maintenance is a problem."
No shit. Really?
I'm guessing the business justification to replace these systems has read about as benign as this understatement for decades now.
Let's hope for the city of Paris learns a lesson here when one of the three people supporting this system agrees to fix it at the rate of $500,000/hr. (2 hour minimum of course).
http://slashdot.org/~Coren22/c...
I think he is spamming quite enough. But that could be just me.
I am doing my best to highlight the problem to Dice, we will see if they ever do anything about it. I doubt there is much that can be done to block his "Bridge" method (really a proxy...) of spamming Slashdot, but maybe if it becomes enough of a problem they will do something about it.
I'm all for watching it all burn though.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Ehh, sorry to break it to you, but not all Unix installations come with SGI's File System Navigator. So in those installations, your best bet would be to create a GUI interface using VB and track the IP.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Good luck getting any serial port app to work correctly in Windows 7. We've never been able to.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
"The airport actually runs on a variety of old systems, including Windows XP and UNIX."
Depending on what actual operating system this is, just because its UNIX doesn't mean its old.
If it was some version of SunOS UNIX, yeah I'd say its old :)
Peace, or Not?
You're both wrong. The reason why these machines weren't virtualized a while ago is that you have to make a lot of serial/parallel/ps2 conversions for ports that are truly physical. These are the types of programs that send specific voltage down the wires and expect exactly something specific in return. Lots of times you try to get those returns right and you simply can't anticipate the various bugs that amazingly show up just a few months after you convert. The real problem? Some are nearly unsolveable. You can't even figure out what the manufacturer/programmer was trying to achieve with their hardware interface so it's best to simply leave eveything as is. Half these people don't even work in computers anymore, let alone the vendor they were at in the 80's. This coming from a guy who espouses VMs every day on a variety of systems.
Is there a compelling reason that Windows of any version is needed here? Looks like the underpinnings here are DOS. So if they get computers that have just 1MB of RAM, fired up w/ FreeDOS, that should work well and run all the apps in question, right? In fact, it would be not just possible, but actually feasible, to have a single chip computer - say a 486 at 1GHz w/ 1MB of RAM and 1GB of SSD that would be a much faster computer for the same software. Since it's FreeDOS, one needn't depend on Microsoft for anything - just get an IT team to manage it.
Electric barbed wire.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
Last time I looked most motherboards still seem to have the headers (RS232, etc) needed to make stuff work. if not, you plug in an expansion card. That's how I'm doing it on a guy's win7 machine running ancient shit made for DOS. Win7 only only there to run the drivers for the card.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Look I understand the desire to spare, but there are a heap of vendor which propose this exact service (I work for one !) and i doubt it is connected to anything for which tehre would not be an interface we handle already (from MATIP to other weird protocol), even going to change format for you, all on modern cheap hardware. having anything that run 3.1 when it should be easily to get for cheap such a service.... So if there is no incredibly rare hardware unknown protocol reason, then it is cheer stupidity.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
http://bellard.org/jslinux/
Done.
Someone you trust is one of us.
https://copy.sh/v86/?profile=w...
Someone you trust is one of us.
Does the poor baby need more attention?
Is he crying because his diaper needs changing?
You are pretty sad, but keep it up, it doesn't bother me one bit, buddy.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
One problem is when you get to the specs written by companies that use the same protocols. On the civil GPS unit I had to communicate with, the specification on the CRC protocol left out half of what you needed to know. So we just used a CRC table for another application that produced results that the GPS unit accepted. Of course the original CRC code was about a decade old but... yay?
The SunOS kernel and the BSD kernel can be recompiled with various options pretty easily too, so that argument falls flat.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
You're both wrong. The reason why these machines weren't virtualized a while ago is that you have to make a lot of serial/parallel/ps2 conversions for ports that are truly physical. These are the types of programs that send specific voltage down the wires and expect exactly something specific in return.
Ironically, you just named three ports where that's either not the case, or trivial to achieve. All PC keyboard ports are digital 5V, there are only two kinds of signaling, and nobody was using the old kind by the time Windows 3.1 came out. All PC parallel ports are digital 5V. And by definition, RS-232 is 12V, although many if not most ports will accept a 5V signal. (If you hook up any outgoing lines, though, you may well murder any 5V serial devices you hook up, if they don't have a real MAX232 in them.)
The real problem is that a lot of these PCs have ISA-bus interface cards in them, and their drivers are often crap that is pissy about timings. Even a really high-speed PC is enough to make them not work. In order to reasonably replace these devices, you have to analyze the circuit and/or connection to figure out what the original control board was doing, throw it away, and replace it with something else. These days you might reasonably replace it with any little microcontroller board, like an Arduino. They are faster than early PCs were! But first you have to figure out how. Those boards also often included a specialty power supply to drive whatever-it-was, so you've got to replace that as well.
Most of the time it's going to make more sense to throw it all away and start with a new thing. But it's not impossible, just expensive.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That is crying in your world? You must be pretty sensitive if you think that. I was saying that you were posting quite enough to be penalized by the Slashdot editors, but you can take it as me rolling on the ground crying my eyes out if you want...it doesn't make it true though.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
OMG, that is comedy gold, so now APK thinks he is a visualization and datacenter expert too. Another feather for him to claim he has in his cap.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
In theory, you could use something like Intel VT-d to grant exclusive access to that PCI-to-ISA bridge to that VM. It might take a bit of work, but that's the kind of thing that VT-d is for.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
>Your funny, guy.
You're a funny guy.
ftfy
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
I have a feeling they only have one set of hardware. You can't just plug in the 2nd set of sensor wires and ensure they work with protocol converters or reverse engineer them. Even if there is a 2nd system, it's probably a backup that always needs to be ready.
I'm sure modern airports have newer equipment and there are probably specialized companies that can come in and install newer hardware and get it up and running side by side the old stuff so you can then take the old stuff down (or turn it into a backup), but that stuff doesn't come cheap. For smaller cities, they probably just don't want to spend the money on the airport.
You do realize that there are around 10 people who mention your crap in their signatures right?
Perhaps you should read Slashdot sometime with an accoutn logged in. You already stated previously that you created an account (I think it was AlecStar) for the Carmack interview I beleive, just use it and see what we all say "behind your back" (because you not logging in is somehow our fault).
KGIII busted your mistake on AD too!
What crack are you smoking? Here is his comment, in full, including his (current) signature. Where does he say a DAMN thing about AD?
An interesting note... In an earlier thread, I saw that APK quoted your signature. I do believe that signatures are not visible unless the user is logged in. APK has stated, numerous times, that they have no account. I'm unsure of what to make of it but I did find it amusing though I probably should have commented in that thread. Alas, I'm too lazy... Well, technically, it didn't cross my mind.
As stated, I have no idea what to make of it. I just noticed the comment that quoted your signature. Personally, I don't mind 'em but that's just me. I'm pretty easy to get along with, most of the time. ;-)
--
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Yeah, I said I would change the sig, but it is apparent you can't read them, because you are proving my signature correct!
--
Making APK lose his mind one post at a time, it looks like I have succeeded.
You have lost your mind now, you just keep posting all this crap while people bitch about how annoying you are. No one but you actually reads these, and no one cares what you put there.
How about this, no matter what you do, post, say, scream, cry, whimper, or shout; I WILL NOT CHANGE MY SIGNATURE AT YOUR DEMAND. I am an independent person, and no matter what you do, you cannot force me to do your bidding, and for spite, I will do what I want just to piss you off. That is how the world works. I am sorry you think you have some kind of control, and that you think that acting like a petulant little child because you didn't get your way will work, but it will never work with me.
Have a good day sir, and Thanks for all the Fish.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Someone could probably fix it, but the certification would be painful. Massive amounts of testing required for safety critical systems. The same problem affects things like fire alarm/smoke extraction systems. It's cheaper to pay silly money for parts to keep the old one going.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Smaller cities... like Paris, apparently?
This is Orly which is no longer Paris's main airport. If you ever travel through it, it'll be obvious that they have no money.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
I wasn't saying that recompiling it didn't void the cert, I was just saying the kernel can be recompiled. And yes, you are right. You would have to certify say RHEL 6.5 on x86, RHEL 6.6 on x86, and RHEL 6.5 on x64 all separately, and definately a re-certification for each distribution (fun fact, only OS X 10.4 and up on Intel hardware has been certified UNIX, the PPC versions never were)
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
At least you can do board work on the older systems the new ones have to many layers for that to work.
WordPerfect made heavy use of ALT+Fn, CTRL+Fn, SHIFT+Fn.
This sig under construction. Please check back later.
...runs on Windows XP throughout, as far as I can tell.
But will VT-d work with a 16 BIT os / the older 32 BIT's nt's or the mixed 16/32 dos + win9x?
also there are quite a few ram pool / address space limits with the old software / hardware. Also they may freak out with trying to pass a non 486 / 386 / 586 / Pentium cpu.
Runtime error 200 type errors as well.
Damn I just threw out my 486SLC that had dos 6.1 and windows 3.1 installed on it just last month!
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
I'm not your bub, guy.
FC Closer
The components are all on the outside of the boards, so that doesn't really matter unless something happens to actually damage the PCB. And if that happens, it's generally not worth it to try to salvage the PCB anyway.
Really? Because Windows ME supposedly required a Pentium processor. Not sure whether or not that was a hard requirement or if it could still technically boot on a 486. If it really is a 486, it must be dreadfully slow, especially since most 486's aren't going to accept enough ram to run ME comfortably.
... the most hilarious and saddest news out of France at the same time.
One word: Dosbox.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I have found and reported a few bugs blocking some Win16 applications to run under Wine. It is ofcourse more difficult for developers to adress those issues nowadays, but on the other hand is the OS much smaller than the current versions so a 100% re-implementation should be possible. I think it would be great if some more effort would be put into the Win16 compatibility of Wine. At work, we had some fully working machines where the controlling software was built for Win16, and when the machines had to be replaced by Win95/98/XP machines it all became completely unreliable (crashes claiming "not enough memory"). It is sad when very expensive and fully functional machinery (in this case a CytoFluor 4000) gets unusable because of something stupid like that.
Same thing with checksums on various mag stripe cards, which I wrote software for in the 1980s. There was the Luhn algorithm, and then the other Luhn algorithm, and then the other other Luhn algorithm, and the alternate Luhn algorithm, and the not-quite-right Luhn algorithm, and the Luhn variant, and the other Luhn variant, and holy fsck how many ways can you screw up one checksum?
Windows ME requires 32MB, 64MB recommended. So it sounds possible.
ARCNET (note caps) is actually pretty good, and still used in applications that require deterministic network response, (like industrial control applications).
It was far superior to Ethernet back in the day, but was "closed" so was slowly hammered into oblivion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Depending on when that code was written, it's possible that the machine's ALU was slower than doing a fetch from cache or even memory, so the ganky lookup table may have been faster then. Maybe.
But the TRS-80 Model II ARCnet board was indeed a piece of work. Grep the comp.sys.tandy archives on google groups for ARCnet one day.
I'll App to that!
This is just yet more proof that the Y2K bug was overblown (as if we needed more evidence).
Ha! Y2K was not overblown, even though the media had fun with it.
Thousands of people worked very long hours to make sure it -seemed- overblown. And were mostly successful!
I worked on a lot of PC programs that malfunctioned after 2000. Luckily none of those were critical... but others were.
Is there open source software to use an x86 machine as a 61131 PLC, I wonder? Companies that are going to decide to solve the problem with a computer they can pick up for 400€ at the local FNAC could at least be pointed in the direction of a more maintainable solution.
I'm curious what programs that were 'critical' other than payroll. Most of the hype surrounding the y2k bug was whether mechanics would just stop. Other than reports, nothing happened. Elevators, shipyards, medical equipment, and toasters were all safe.
Some trolls are amusing, some trolls are annoying, but APK is one of the worst I have seen in a long time.. Definite psychosis in the writing style and demeanour. Repetition and denial of logic, plus bizarre absolute beliefs. False belief systems driven by paranoia. Sad to say it but APK seriously needs the help of mental health professionals.
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
What about OS/2 for a temporary solution? It can run many of the apps that Windows 3.1 could and thanks to derivatives that are still actively developed like eComStation it can run on more hardware than in the past which would help give them time to port it over to something else.
I'm not saying to just abandon their old system right away since they can't just drop it and move away from it overnight they have to eventually do something about hardware support because eventually supported hardware for old systems goes away and they're already using eBay. Given OS/2's reputation for running Windows programs from back then, it may at least open up some options while they work on replacing the old system and if they had to make some updates to it, it may be a little more cost effective to jump to a platform that's known to run those apps that still has a company backing it up.
Ultimately they are going to need to abandon their old system, however in the meantime they have to do something about the hardware and this looks like something that can't be virtualized.
Let's leave Family Ties out of this.
No, RS-232 is +/- 3-15V
In actual fact, you can't use -3/+3 signaling on RS-232, either, and in practice all PCs implemented +/-12V serial ports.
and requires a withstand voltage on both transmitters and receivers of a short in the range of +/- 25V though it wouldn't surprise me that many a modern "RS-232" ports or adaptors fry at below 25V.
I mean that there's a lot of TTL serial stuff (or even 3.3v) and if you pretend it's RS-232 you'll kill it when you hook it up to a PC, which has a +/-12V serial port.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
There must have been some things, an aweful lot of people were explicitly working on it!
I worked on a number of PCs that refused to boot during that January. In those day many PCs had to have the ROM chip replaced, no flashing. Luckily many were in sockets back then. Some people that couldn't get updates, or didn't want to bother, just set the date back 4 years, so the days of the month would be the same.
Many applications could not find data in their databases. Some had unchecked error conditions that caused GPFs. In those day a lot less machinery had computer controls. But, many did and some of it was very old, just like today.
Much effort was spent on dangerous machines and I am not aware of any that were still giving problems in the date tests, on January first.
After all, the computers and networks could have the date changed for testing, before it actually happened. Some companies built extensive isolated systems just to simulate what would happen. By the time year 2000 came everyone (well most) had been fixing for a while.
And then when we were successful, the news media said that it had all been a fraud! 8-(
But then this was often the same news people that had been encouraging people to spit on the returning soldiers from Vietnam, a few years before! So we sort of expected it...
Because improvement in processing capability and storage capability in the past decade mean that using coding tricks to conserve both is no longer necessary.
You complain that that person posts AC? Isn't that a bit abnormal, an AC bitching about someone posting AC? Make an account, log in and post, or don't bitch about others posting AC as well.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Oooo, now who is getting all wound up?
I don't need to fuck myself thank you, I am still young enough to attract the ladies.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Agreed.
Here is an AC detailing the mental issues with links to the information about them:
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Translation: I have nothing else in my life, so I will moan and gripe about people on Slashdot, and try to hawk my old, tired, outclasses software in the most obnoxious manner, attracting notoriety and scorn in the process.
The implication of still running on win 3.1 and not being updated is that there isn't the will.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
The Ars Technica one - terrifying..
LOL from that I just got his full name and address from 2000, I don't really want it. :(
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
I imagine that if you grabbed a copy of his current software it would have his current address. It is funny to read him trying to defend trademark infringement, and making his software out to be so hard to make when it is a file copy/rename/delete program...LOL!
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
The monkeys on the internet have been active !!!
Thanks for the link. It is amazing how far technology has progressed. To think that it took a WHOLE PC to run Windows/DOS and now it can run (pretty well) in a scripted language hosted by another app. I took a look at the source of one of these JS emulation projects and it is amazing the level at which it works - pretty darned cool. I played DOOM in a browser a few years ago - worked better than my 486 of yesteryear.
I'll bet if I looked I'd find one as a VBA macro in Excel.