Ancient Computers in Use Today off topic but you'll like

[blackbird]

Ancient Computers in Use Today

 

If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It

 

 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/249951/i ... today.html

 

[scaryoldcortina]

 

[messerschmitt owner]

I'm using a specced upfirst generation blue and white G3 mac at home and Lord Sterling is using a crappy decade old Compac laptop now!

[Negative Creep]

Clearly they've never visited my work. Although the phrase "if it's broke don't bother fixing it" would be more appropriate

[RedSparrow]

Apparently a lot of Sinclair ZX80/ZX81/ZX Spectrum clones are still used as controls in many Russian factories. Make of that what you will!

[scooters]

Over 70% of the UK production of Jam/Marmalades/Honey and 100% of concentrated jelly bars is entirely in the hands of a 1989 IBM AS/400 which runs all the conveyor belts at this particular factory, the largest jam factory in Europe.

 

There is no longer any hardware or software support for this and the propriatory nature of the operating system means that should it break down there would be an 8 day hiatus minimum before production could resume this in turn would cause a shortage of strawberry jam in particular across the nation and much of Europe.

 

The of the factory and company that runs will remane nameless!

 

Seen it with me own mince!

[messerschmitt owner]

just before Lord S got my old laptop, I removed the links to my old work's AS/400. It was an expensive bugger to buy HDDs for.

[RedSparrow]

Well this site should keep some of you amused for a few hours:

http://www.old-computers.com/news/default.asp

[Ross_K]

Ancient Computers in Use Today

 

If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It

 

 

IBM/Hollerith punchcard machine in that article - Nazi-rific!

 

IBM made a LOT of dosh from the reich back in the day. They controlled everything from censuses to concentration camp train scheduling.

 

Amazing to see one still in use.

[AnthonyG]

I remember reading that engineers who worked on the London Underground using Ebay to find spare parts. Think this was more electrical equipment like generator sets rather than computers though.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

NASA made the news a few years ago when it turned out they were scouring eBay for spare Intel 8086 processors.

[Pillock]

All our product repairs (25,000 a week) and all our deliveries (probably another ten thousand a week) run off a pair of 1970's Unix systems. I know the repairs one is still being developed by the original programmer who is on an insane amount of money, but if it breaks we just stop working.

 

And we buy parts off eBay to keep customers products running if we have to.

[jnoiles]

I'm actively negotiating the purchase of a BeBox as we speak. Not the router from bethere internet. The old computer that ran BeOS.

 

I'd love a NeXTcube.

[Ross_K]

I'm actively negotiating the purchase of a BeBox as we speak. Not the router from bethere internet. The old computer that ran BeOS.

 

I'd love a NeXTcube.

 

Didn't the NextCube have a case made out of something crazy like titanium or magnesium?

[jnoiles]

Magnesium. But not pure as demonstrated via the sacrilege here: http://simson.net/hacks/cubefire.html

[Autoplas]

Acorn Electrons were still in use across the entire interflora network until the early 2000s.

 

Basically the Electon was hooked up to a modem which used to receive the order at the relevant local florists from Interflora, and then spewed out the details on an equally ancient dot matrix.

 

Having owned one of these in the 1980s, I think the fact that they lasted so long in a business capacity is great.