So apparently there's a filter company in Texas that uses a 1948 IBM computer to run the company

pcworld.com/article/249951/computers/if-it-aint-broke-dont-fix-it-ancient-computers-in-use-today.html

So apparently there's a filter company in Texas that uses a 1948 IBM computer to run the company

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Comfy.

More like an electronic calculator than a computer.

Makes sense. Those 70s minicomputers aren't microprocessor-based, they're just huge collections of logic gates so it's fairly trivial to recreate everything using more modern components if you have the original schematics and other tech data on hand.

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>wasting all that electricity

Dude that's drops in the bucket compared to their actual machinery. I work in a machine shop and our smallest mills use 1.5kW just at the spindle. Then there's the motors for table movement and the controller itself.

I've been in packaging plants that were using palletizers from the 60's (which had since had their relay based control cabinets ripped out so they could be networked in the late 90s but the rest of the machine is the same)

businesses don't replace their shit unless they have to, it's easier and cheaper to just pay someone like me to deal with the lack of drawings and bullshit their way through whatever problems they do have.

Every fucking thread, what horrifyingly overpriced liberal shitholes do you retards live in where this is all you worry about?

I have the sudden urge to commit arson.

when you're running a business, you gotta account for shit like that. It's not a lib thing
that company would be better off using modern tech

watch yourself with that edge user

See It's like losing your mind over an old microwave in the break room. Shit's fuck all compared to the actual machinery their business is built around and still remains profitable with, nobody gives a fuck about replacing some side shit that still does what is required of it.

cope
a shitty laptop can do much more and take up way less space/time for maintenance and generating receipts and all that bs, check the article it's a shitshow running that thing

>spend money to replace something that works
or
>let it keep working
please tell me what a business would do

Check the article yourself, the CHM even sent people over there to help them replace it and they turned it down. Nobody who actually works with the system seems to care, just a couple autistic millennials thousands of miles away that think they're the only people who have ever seen a computer in the last 50 years and know all the solutions to a use case they know fuck all about.

I wouldn't be surprised if they just wanted to keep it going for the fuck of it at this point, just to see how much more they can get out of it. The operators probably know the system like the backs of their hands and the news coverage is nothing but free advertising.

I work for a fairly major electrical chain, and even though all the tillpoints are using modern software and hardware the stock and warehouse system is all running DOS software (now emulated in DOSBox). I love it, because the UI is based around function keys so moving between menus is lightning fast.

>So apparently there's a filter company in Texas that uses a 1948 IBM computer to run the company
Yes, magnetic core memory is incredibly durable, they used it in aerospace until the mid 00s.

Pic related was in production running a clinical note taking application until early last year.

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And this is the modem stack clinicians would dial into to submit their notes. Yes. We had Core 2 Duo machines with 56k modems just to suppor tthis backwards ass bullshit.

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Very cool.

Sweet Jesus. And I thought the healthcare IT systems I had to maintain were antequated.

Props to them for making it work for so long, but I can't help but think that at least a few patients received poor health outcomes or died because of the lack of capability that comes with using such a presumably 'capability poor' system, for no other reaon but lack of willingness to come in to the 21st century.

The 21st century with all its backdoored and planned obsolescent hardware is a shitty place.

These guys use powerterm to an AS400 as their primary user interface. Everything from results retrieval to leave requests go through the terminal (on dell 9020 micros mind you). As I was walking out the door this year they were running UAT parallel to the term interface. My only regret is all the legacy loot I'll miss out on when they complete the migration. Seems pretty typical big money goes into the diagnostic gear, while the rest goes to shit.

Gotta make them shekels. A 20 year old 486 server isn't making money for anyone.

That can all be replaced with a RaspberryPi nano.

Lets talk about it.

One Ancient Commodore Amiga Runs the Heat and AC for 19 Public Schools.

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Good luck getting a shitty laptop run for 50 years, 24/7

Looks amazingly clean for something that has been in operation for so long.

The irony is that systems that replace those are often slower and less reliable due to reliance on 150 levels of web and database frameworks.

The processing unit can be replaced with a 8-bit Arduino. But you gotta build an interface to import old punch card records, replicate the accounting functions and re-educate the staff, and that's going to be many orders of magnitude more expensive than the CPU.

>old computers bad
>new computers good

I don't want to meme, but they're making no convincing arguments why you should replace ancient business logic that isn't even connected to the internet.

After a certain point it just becomes nonviable to replace any parts. Those old boards aren't modular like modern components. Just imagine how long it would take for a corporation to yank the fucking thing out of a rack and have some greybeard at a different business go along with a multi meter to figure out which capacitor is shot and replace it. A week or two? With such ancient hardware it's not possible to do load balancing so you could take the damaged part out without an interruption of service. There is benefits to sticking with a system that is functional but one has to consider the Sword of Damocles hovering over your head in the event of a failure. Now you have a service outage AND a complete rebuild at the same time. Better to just to the rebuild while the business is still earning money and a week of outages overnight while you replace it with a modular setup.

I'll also point out within the article itself that it mentions that a part of the system failed THREE YEARS PRIOR and has not been replaced. Ancient systems like this are absolute garbage and full of constant issues that just get ignored as of matter of course in day to day operations.

What that one computer runs the company the only issue that counts is reliability. Bringing up the price of electricity will have the owners laughing hysterically.

Sure, but I would think they could build a computer far more powerful just on the electricity savings of upgrading. Seems like incompetence not to upgrade.

That is true, it will probably melt down and die from overheating long before them.

What are the white ports in the middle of the case?

All of the multi-property casino games from IGT have similar setups. They run on VAXes and communicate over 2400bps leased lines.

Just part of the backplane, used for expand-ability. Think of it as something akin to pci, in function.

price is not the only issue, greehouse gases are a problem too unless you use the nuclear option like the French