Sparkler Filters' IBM 402,Posted on 02/20/2012 7:27:49 AM PST by ShadowAce
It’s easy to wax nostalgic about old technology--to remember fondly our first Apple IIe or marvel at the old mainframes that ran on punched cards. But no one in their right mind would use those outdated, underpowered dinosaurs to run a contemporary business, let alone a modern weapons system, right?
Wrong!
While much of the tech world views a two-year-old smartphone as hopelessly obsolete, large swaths of our transportation and military infrastructure, some modern businesses, and even a few computer programmers rely daily on technology that hasn’t been updated for decades.
If you’ve recently bought a MetroCard for the New York City Subway or taken money from certain older ATMs, for instance, your transaction was made possible by IBM’s OS/2, an operating system that debuted 25 years ago and faded out soon after.
A recent federal review found that the U.S. Secret Service uses a mainframe computer system from the 1980s. That system apparently works only 60 percent of the time. Here’s hoping that uptime statistics are better for the ancient minicomputers used by the U.S. Department of Defense for the Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missile system, Navy submarines, fighter jets, and other weapons programs. Those systems, according to the consultants who help keep them going, will likely be used until at least the middle of this century.
Here are a few stories of the computers that time forgot, and the people and institutions that stubbornly hold on to them.
Sparkler Filters of Conroe, Texas, prides itself on being a leader in the world of chemical process filtration. If you buy an automatic nutsche filter from them, though, they’ll enter your transaction on a “computer” that dates from 1948.
Sparkler Filters' IBM 402,
(Excerpt) Read more at pcworld.com ...
Knew a guy who worked for IBM in field service repairing copiers. Same problem with competitors’ toner. He’d come in on a service call and change the toner. When the customer asked what was wrong, all he was allowed to say was, “I changed the toner.”
“can current programmers read ‘core dumps’ understand machine language and op codes etc? just askin.”
Nope. They even mock those that can. They think “var x = 1;” is complex programming. They don’t even have to define the variable type for x, they just let the compiler do it.
“They even mock those that can.”
Just curious, why is that? I felt comfortable with Assembler because you pretty much had a one to one relationship with the source and machine language code. You were certain of what your code was executing as opposed to compiler source.
Ego. Arrogance. They want to feel like the most capable heroes, yet, they lack basic computer skills. It really doesn’t take much to make a web site or program basic user interfaces. In fact, any kid can do it because it is so easy. So, they defend their fragile egos by mocking. Remember, most programmers fit the Gen Y mold perfectly: You have to congratulate them on not pissing on themselves when they go to the bathroom or else they feel you are being mean to them.
Several years ago I was on an airplane with a recent computer science graduate. I asked him how he liked assembly language. He looked at me like I was speaking Swahili. He had NO IDEA what assembly language was.
What the heck are they teaching for 4 years ?
Ahhh..I’ve never seen the 96-column gauge before.
This one appears to have holes punched in the gauge; the 80-column type just had rectangles in black oxide on the surface.
But this one seems to have the punched alignment bosses just like the original kind.
Several years ago I was on an airplane with a recent computer science graduate. I asked him how he liked assembly language. He looked at me like I was speaking Swahili. He had NO IDEA what assembly language was.
What the heck are they teaching for 4 years.
Do they even own six colors of flair pen?
≤}B^)
“Why, he so dumb, he think dat Assembly Language is when de Principal get up to talk.”
“Do they even own six colors of flair pen?”
To make matters more difficult, when IBM was on a ‘paper recycle kick’, back in the late 70’s, you had your ‘memory dumps’ put on to micro fiche.
Interesting, although the shopping doesn’t work.
ROFL!
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Geez ....wonder what happened to these Guys.
I am still using OS/2 works really well on a core-due with 4g of ram, but its now called ecs. lots of programs are being ported over even openoffice
Assembly is mostly unnecessary. I took the course way back when but haven’t used it since.
If it's a 'core dump' from an IBM mainframe I can still read it. I'm retired too, but some things just stick with you. Trouble is, someone stole my Decimal/Octal/Hex calculator some years back so it might take me a bit longer. :)
Assembly is mostly unnecessary. I took the course way back when but haven’t used it since.
I use it every day to program the ATTinyXX parts. I could use C but the results are kind of bloatsome.
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