Oldest Software Seen in Production? 54
Ian Bevan asks: "In my last job we were replacing a legacy system, written in COBOL and running on a Fujitsu mainframe since 1985 (it was a payroll application). A bespoke database application I wrote in 1989 was still being used, unmodified, last year. What's the oldest software you know of still in production? Anybody know of anything from the 70s, or even 60s ? What's it used for?" Has anyone seen software in production that is older than they are?
COBOL? Pshaw... PL/I (Score:2, Interesting)
You would be supprised.... (Score:3, Interesting)
1976 or so (Score:3, Interesting)
I do have some code in the same environment that hasn't seen much change since the mid to late 80s. (680x0 assembler, to boot).
NASA (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't hold me to this, but I think some of the software on the Pioneer probes was written in the 1970's.
Re:NASA (Score:2, Insightful)
Ratheon Patriot Missile production... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Ratheon Patriot Missile production... (Score:1)
Re:Ratheon Patriot Missile production... (Score:1)
Re:Ratheon Patriot Missile production... (Score:1)
Computer Associates, Keeper of the Old (Score:5, Funny)
Any time you want to find the Ancient Ones, look at the heart of any big and old company. Invariably you'll find a package or two which they're afraid to touch for fear of breaking some business fundamental, i.e. payroll or inventory.
And Computer Associates seems to have their name on that package every time. From what I can tell, CA seems to specialize in buying up ancient software and maintaining it.
When I was doing database consulting, I ran across a number of payroll packages which had been purchased by CA, always running on some mainframe that'd dim the lights when it ran, but which seemed to do nothing that a desktop PC couldn't.
CA's got a good deal. From what I've seen, they don't update the software, save for critical fixes (Y2K, etc). They merely collect annual license fees on top of support costs.
When I'd tell companies that I could take users off their green screens without moving away from the CA package, rather than replacing the CA package as every other contractor had wanted to do, I'd always have their ear. Typically, I'd make a mint by making form applications and data importers/exporters which usually took longer to spec out than to write.
how about... (Score:1)
oh, never mind.
Re:how about... (Score:1)
Re:how about... (Score:1)
Old fortran 4 code (Score:2, Informative)
As a matter of fact, one of the mainframe systems on which it ran over time was low on storage, so someone wrote a program that would strip the comments from all source files. So when I was working on it, there were almost no comments there.
The software was used to do usage accounting and resource accounting in a testing environment and basically worked flawlessly (except when features needed added or changed).
Apple's OS (Score:1)
Re:Apple's OS (Score:2)
What about Classic OS 9.2: that has a heart from 1984 Dirk
Heh, this is true. Though it underwent the transformation from 24bit/32bit"dirty" to 32bit "clean" in 1988. Tremendous overhual in 1991 with Blue (System 7). Lots of changes over the years, mostly to threading and VM. Totally new nanokernel in 1999 with Veronica (Mac OS 8.6).
I actually don't mind 9.2.1, it's been tweaked out pretty good for semi-modern hardware. Though many of the changes from 9.1 -> 9.2.1 have broken poorly written drivers. 9.2.2 due within a month is supposed to fix a few remaining issues. Still, nothing beats System 7.1 on my 68040 based Quadra 800. Boot to the desktop in 11 seconds of my 540 MB HD. TCP/IP stack. Support for the onboard ethernet. Still runs Photoshop 2.5.1 fast enough for web-resolution graphics. Zen-like simplicity.
But I digress...
My core memory still has some 000s and 111s in it (Score:5, Interesting)
I like to bring the panel of core memory out at geek parties and show it to the younger crowd and see the reaction - usually disbelief. I also have a DECtape with all my Algol and DECSYSTEM-10 assembler programs from 1969-74. [DECSYSTEM-10: world's first useful multiuser timesharing systems - one model of the 36-bit Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) computers. Beautifully designed, giant cabinets w/cool colours, toggle switches, flashing lights - everything that made a computer the best-est toy in the whole world!] A DEC engineer once showed us how you could roll the tape out on the floor, jump on it, roll it back up and still read the data off it, there was so much redundancy built in. [The tape is about an inch wide.] Too bad there are no DECtape drives still in existence that I could use to copy the files... *sigh* CompuServe also ran on DEC-10s for many, many years.
See URL:
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/pdp10.html
for some nice pics, history and links...
-Ocelot Wreak.
Priorities! (with a note on "time-sharing") (Score:2)
I wonder how many younger Slashdotters can really grok the concept of "time-sharing". There was a time when CPUs were expensive resources that usually had to be shared by a fair number of people. I studied Fortran, PL/1, and 360 machine language without ever actually touching a computer. Instead, I would transcribe my programs on a deck of punched cards, give them to an operator, and wait for my job to cycle through the system. Response time varied from an hour during the day to 5 minutes late at night. Naturally, most programmers I knew were insomniacs.
In this context time-sharing seemed magical. Now it's just a minor application of multitasking. But then, the concept that a machine could divide its attention between 100 or so users, and do so while maintaining the illusion of being "face-to-face" with the computer was most unsettling.
I also wonder how many Linux hackers really understand the time-sharing roots of their systems. A lot of design decisions for Unix stem from its origins as a time-sharing system. The fact that it's now mainly a single-user system often gives me pause.
LISP on 36-bit DEC (Score:1)
Off-topic: 36-bit DEC machines -- what could be nerdier? :-) Thanks, Ocelot!
On-topic: I suspect somewhere there is still some port of LISP code that was first written on those machines and which remains in use to this day.
Re:My core memory still has some 000s and 111s in (Score:2)
I like to show them my working PDP-11/20 [telnet.hu], complete with two 4Kword MM11-E core memories. Mine looks like the one in the picture there minus the disk cabinet on the left, the red panel at the top of the rack, and the ASR-33s. The machine was given to me free of charge, though I had to drive 2400 miles to get it.
Too bad there are no DECtape drives still in existence
Mine still works, and there are a few others out there that still have working ones. I've seen two units on eBay during the last year. There are people out there who are keeping this old technology alive.
Re:My core memory still has some 000s and 111s in (Score:1)
-Ocelot Wreak.
1967 (Score:5, Interesting)
I believe they are planning on writing a replacement to run on Sun or IBM unix boxes, but it probaly won't be done for 5-7 years (it's low-priority, since the current system is fine until the people who run it retire in 10 years)
The mainframe is from the late 80's, but the initial revision of the software (now on version 6.6 or something) was coded in 1967.
This doesn't count, but (Score:1)
ATC software (Score:1, Interesting)
It's the "it works, it was designed to never ever break, let's not mess with it" principle.
There's the z/OS file copy command... (Score:1)
-Bok
Re:There's the z/OS file copy command... (Score:1)
At risk of being modded as a troll... (Score:2, Funny)
UNIX!! (Score:1)
Counting BSD, we're up to millions, easily.
1974 (Score:3, Interesting)
ACP/TPF (Score:1)
Ancient Code is all over the place (Score:5, Interesting)
I've seen some seriously old code running in the aerospace and oilfiled exploration areas - in some cases, the old algorithms really can't be improved that much, in others, the code has been kept alive through heroic methods simply because the source (or anyone that understood it) was lost to the company decades ago. You'd be amazed at how many PDP-11s or 16s are still in service as factory process controllers - they were the standard in Manufacturing and refineries just a few years ago - if Compaq hadn't pulled support, thier users wouldn't even be migrating off the things - they're dead simple and just flat bulletproof.
This can even happen in relatively new large companies: The heart of Dell's build-to-order production system is a pile of extremely crufty Tandem code that is only partially understood by no more than maybe a half-dozen old-timers, most of whom aren't programmers. It's a good thing that the Non-Stop architecture hasn't changed too much in years - they've been relying on Moore's law to make the old code scale enough to accommodate their growth. (Dell may finally be moving off the Tandem by now - Compaq's acquisition of Tandem really tweaked Dell - they couldn't stand being so reliant on *Compaq* for the core technology their whole business is based upon, although they also rely on Sun for all the data warehousing that drives their marketing and sales machine. I know because I considered a job running the "secret" Sun data center at Dell, the one with no windows, that customers never see...)
NASA has tons of ancient code, much of which runs pretty much as it was ages ago - This is partly because NASA's planning horizon is so far out that they have to freeze the hardware years before it goes into production. For example, the primary computing infrastructure for the ISS was frozen about 1995 as being based on the '486 and 640x480 VGA displays. (I was at Sun at the time, and had a heck of a time finding 6x4 S-Bus display adapters for a project at JSC - NASA considered some exceptions to the Intel rule, but not many...) Around the same time, I had a meeting with another group of JSC ISS engineers to find a suitable computer for another part of the station. They were terribly concerned about weight, heat, physical size, and resilience to vibration, but get this, they *insisted* on VME-bus architecture, which had alreaady been obsolete for more than a decade and would be about the worst choice possible to meet their needs, not to mention banishing any hope of acceptable performance. And some people wonder how NASA can waste so much money...
Of course, Unix itself falls into the category of ancient software still in production use for those that run BSD or other *real* Unix, not that wimpy GNU stuff with those perverted "--" options and the like...
I know for a fact that some companies I've worked for (and shall remain nameless) have decades-old code that they've used various binary conversion tools on because the source was lost long ago, and it would cost too much to rebuild the program from scratch. Sometimes even having the source doesn't do you much good when the Fortran source has made rugged transitions across several version s of Fortran before being unceremoniously dumped into a Fortran-to-C translator (to "run in the modern world", like Fortran doesn't...) The C source that now comprises the "current" source of these apps is so ugly no one will *ever* maintain it, so it will likely limp on for decades more.
As a last observation, good computer architectures tend to allow code to stay in use for a very long time: current IBM mainframes still run code from the 360 days just fine, VAX and PDP code has lasted darn near forever, and it's quite apparent that Sun's unique commitment to binary compatibility will carry some old apps well into the future with thier customers as well... (Most people don't know it, but this is one of the cooler things about Sun - they are adamant about binary compatibility: the same exact Solaris code that ran on your original SPARCstation 1 will run unmodified (but a whole lot faster) on the latest UltraSPARC behemoth. Both the hardware and the OS have been carefully designed to make architecture transitions totally seamless, one big reason Sun's kicked butt against HP, SGI, IBM and DEC/Compaq, all of which thought it was OK to force their customers to throw away all their old stuff for the new. Of course, nobody else has Bill Joy to plan these things through 5 years before they're needed, either. The amazing thing about Bill's architectures is that Sun has provided binary compatibilty without paying any penalty for legacy support. That's just plain cool.
Triad Series-12 (Score:2, Informative)
Where do you find these fossils? Try a very large percentage of auto parts stores! Just look for the ugly blue terminals with "TRIAD" stamped on them.
How do I know? I run the communications systems for one of the major auto parts chains. These damned things are older than I am! Fortunately, we are replacing everything with a new system soon, and putting Linux into every one of our stores (and our jobbers) as a terminal controller/router/desktop!
"Those were the days" (Score:1)
I love these song lyrics [slashdot.org] from our last old-fart discussion featuring the classic DEC machines.
Incidentally, can someone tell me why this story wasn't on the default home page? I only saw it because I hit "older stuff".
OT: implicit story filtering for unreg'd users (Score:1)
I can see that your post is deliberately inflamatory, but I want to explain what my question meant, in case somebody else can answer it, so I will reply anyway.
You said:
I didn't link to a previous discussion -- I linked to a post in a previous dicussion; that is neither retarded nor without precedent. Moreover, that post (not mine, if you care to know) was funny and relevant. Some of us don't mind laughing at ourselves, you know.
You said:
I do realize that there are sections in Slashdot, and that one can choose not to see certain sections or authors or whatnot when logged in, but I did not realize that any stories were excluded from the default home page -- the one people get when they visit Slashdot without a coughing up the Slashdot user cookie. That's what I would have understood default home page to mean if someone else had used the phrase. Oh, and you didn't need to curse at me that harshly in the part of the post I didn't quote. [Aside: You didn't write that, did you, Rob? I hope not.]
Now, can someone tell me whether it is true that some stories are never on the default home page and why? I thought filtering was the privilege of registered users.
And, lastly, you said:
And you, sir, are an Anonymous Coward!
If you think about it... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to compare software to machines, there are plenty of things that've been arround longre than 20-30yrs. The B-52 bombers, originally built durring the cold war are flying over Afghanistan as we speak. I've seen machining equipment built in the 20s still in regular use at machine shops (granted, many of them have been supplanted by CNC gear, but they're still accurate & reliable). Some of the massive earthmoving equipment used in mining has been in 24/7 operation for 40-50 years.
Or, if you consider software less of a physical thing, there are many abstraction that still work fine. The American government was established over 200 years ago, and, nitpicking asside, is still doing a damned good job. Mathematics and philosophy are considerably older, and most of it still valid today. Lets not forget that most of the planet practices religions that are over a millenia old.
Compared to that, what is a 20yr old piece of software? I'm sure many of us would -love- to throw away the old COBOL running dinosaurs and replace them with something more modern, but weren't the greatest of the Medieval cathedrals the ones in which the designers stuck to the descisions of previous designers, rather than taking off on their own tangents?
Anyone remember dBase II? (Score:3, Interesting)
I went in, had a look at the source and recalled that I couldn't document it as the code was interpreted and the original IBM-PC it ran on was so slow that stripping out comments yielded a significant performance improvement.
Luckily the code itself was OK - the 5Mb hard disc had finally filled up. Imagine a PC hard disc running for 18 years without a problem! This was one of the original PC hard discs - external box, separate power supply, cabled to the PC with a monster cable that was barely flexible enough to bend through the required 180 degrees to plug it in at both ends. Oh yeah, DOS 2.1 as well - I remember upgrading that same PC from DOS 1.1 to get those new fangled "directories" that sounded pretty cool.
Not tough to fix - whoever had been using it had lost the original documentation (probably 10+ years ago) and didn't know how to archive off the old data to floppies. Wait a minute - where do you get 5.25" floppies these days? After a bit of consultation, we agreed that some of the contracts that hadn't been updated for 15+ years were probably pretty much useless these days, so I went in and deleted the individual records, packed the table and they were up and running with about 500k of free space. That should have seen them through to Y2k, when who knows what would've happened...
I didn't bother to invoice them for the work - I figured the story was worth enough on its own.
Re:Anyone remember dBase II? (Score:1)
I remember the macros being an excellent feature at the time!!
Honeywell 316 (Score:2, Interesting)
The Honeywell monitored both reactors, each having several hundred thermocoples. It had a teletype for the console and two green-screen terminals for the reactor operators.
It had no filesystem on the disk. Data was stored directly in disk blocks and numbers were entered in octal. There was a paper tape punch for backup and loading the operating system.
There was a Fortran IV compiler and a shelf full of manuals. The machine was bought and comissioned in 1972 (two years before I was born) and the software (including multi-tasking OS) was partly developed then by one of my former colleagues who retired a few years ago.
Ink ribbons for the teletype were no longer available, so we had a bottle of Quink and surgeons gloves....
Finally, one Friday last summer, sectors started to dissapear from the built-in disk. There was a spare that had been sitting in the store since 1972 but no one knew how to fit it, how to set it up or anything, and bits had been cannibalised over the years.
As far as I know, it still sits in it's wee room dark and quiet.
I never thought I'd ever have to boot a machine by toggling switches to load memory directly, in my life.... but that's the British nuclear industry for you.
Conservative (and lethargic) are understatements.
Re:Honeywell 316 (Score:1)
Thats about what happened at Chernobyl, you know. They switched off the safety because it was interfering with what they were doing.
I am beginning to think that maybe Greenpeace has a point.
TS
Re:Honeywell 316 (Score:1)
MORE RADIATION! I wanna be bald by the end of the century already!!!
Business Basic (Score:1)
We still have plenty of programs that were written in the 70s and 80s with business basic that still form our enterprise backbone.
Control Data (Score:2)
I've been lucky/cursed in that all the companies/divisions I've worked for are younger than I am. But I've been to several client sites and stumbled across PDP-11s that are up and running. I see a lot of IBM mainframe stuff, but being a Unix kid, I can't tell what's 30 years old and what's brand new (unless it's black and says zSeries).
The oldest I've used are Georgia Tech's Control Data machines. They were old 10 years ago and I was amazed to see just now that at least one of them is up and running. Chances are good that some of the ancient code I saw in 1988 is still there.
I wish I knew what it was (Score:2)
I vistied a customer site a few months ago, and the reps pointed to a tape drive and said "This is the first product we sold." Probably serial number 20 or something like that. Been in production longer then I've been alive by a few years. I know it is still in production because some "little old lady" went up to it not long after to load a new tape.
Old Stuff (Score:1)