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The day that the C64 will break, they have to migrate to a “modern” solution that requires 10 Ghz CPUs with 1024 cores, 20 TB of RAM, that will be running on NodeJS that will have have a MongoDB database for transaction and that will communicate with a VBA script running on the same host in a virtual machine with Windows 2016 through Redis running in a container thanks to Kubernetes.
And they'll be lucky to get uptime upwards of 80%. And only lose 1% of their customers' data.
Seriously, old software wasn't necessarily better (I well remember the old Mac system bomb dialogues!), but it certainly was leaner and forced not to be so complex.
Modern """""""enterprise""""""" solutions in a nutshell.
Just throw in a shitty call-home activation DRM scheme and an authorisation server with 50% uptime too.
This is where the "computer" should be replaced by the "appliance". Simple raspberry machines in rugged enclosures running ONE piece of simple software off flash cards. If it breaks it's a matter of either just inserting the backup flash card (because the old one died) or worse case replacing the raspberry inside the box. Either way it's dirt cheap.
The shop can easily be given 3 raspberries and a dozen flashcards when the system is first installed, for almost no money. Even if the software vendor is out of business when it breaks in 10 years, they are good to go in no time at all. Any auto mechanic can swap the raspberry inside the case in 10 minutes and be up and running again.
Divided on ten plus micro services that all need their own keep alive scripts.
And that will come with an expensive yearly renewable cloud subscription ...
Year ago there were still many POS (point-of-sale) computers at retail stores running with "Subiekt 4" in my town in Poland. I even saw one in supermarket.
DOS program from 1995. http://www.netsetup.pl/s4/img/Image2.gif Connected to old EPSON parallel-port dot matrix printer (those printers were still surprisingly expensive).
I remember editing "Subiekt 4" to change VAT tax from 22% to 23%. 22% tax was hardcoded. Over years there were many more tricks to keep it running, for example "Hyperthreading disabler" program.
Year ago they were still running it in Dosbox but now it's migrated to "Subiekt GT".
I prefer old DOS program because it was easier to copy, just xcopy program folder to pendrive. New version uses MSSQL, and you have to reinstall and activate online. And database sometimes breaks.
> I prefer old DOS program because it was easier to copy, just xcopy program folder to pendrive. New version uses MSSQL, and you have to reinstall and activate online. And database sometimes breaks.
That's why I absolutely love SQLite. You get all the benefits of relational databases while still keeping data in plain files and not having to install system-wide stuff.
Copy-pasting one of the replies from the page:
Reminds me of something my mom did a few weeks ago. She got a scam call from some guy saying he was with Microsoft and he detected a virus on her computer. (First clue it was a scam? They have an iMac. Why would Microsoft be calling?)
My mom started playing dumb and saying, “You mean my Commodore has a virus?”
“What?”
“Yes! I have a Commodore 64!”
“Uh..Do you have Windows?”
“Well, of course! I can look through them and see the birds outside! My cats LOVE my windows...But I don’t let them up by my computer after someone told me that computers have mice.”
“Uhm...Ma’am...Is there someone else there?”
“Nope! Just me, my 12 cats, and my 4 dogs!”
The guy hung up on her at that point. :)
Forward all scam calls to Lenny: https://www.youtube.com/user/ToaoDotNet/videos
This demonstrates how small most computing requirements are. Bigger faster systems to do what? Store an address book? Calculate taxes? Print invoices? Most of our computing needs could be performed by a small embedded computer no greater than a raspberry pi.
6 hours ago there was a [post to the original story] (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12603909). That HN article was LATER marked dupe by THIS gizmodo repost.
This is essentially the opposite of what I'd expect to happen.
Older usually means simple and simple is usually more reliable than complex. Think about it for a moment — these guys don't have a problem with auto-updates, viruses, or network intrusions.
As I write this, I'm looking with growing trepidation at the menus on my new TV, especially the "Anti-Virus" section. Seriously?
Related:
McLaren needs a 20-year-old Compaq laptop to maintain its F1 supercar
http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/3/11576032/mclaren-f1-compaq-...
Wow, that has my story beat. A few weeks ago I was shopping at a football (soccer) gear shop and the man running it rang me up on a computer he’s had since 1994. I want to say it was a Packard Bell, but I’m not sure about that. He had to manually type in the product code of each item I bought, and then printed out a receipt on a dot-matrix printer. Then he swiped my credit card on his iPhone to complete the transaction.
Wow. They should totally rewrite everything in React.
Surprised nobody's mentioned the filter manufacturer in Conroe, TX that was still using an IBM 402 and punched cards as recently as three years ago.
I tried powering up some of my old 20-30 year old computers I'd stowed in the basement. Only one of them booted up, the rest had various POST failures, some even would make snapping noises and emit smoke. Older mechanical parts like drives have grease in them which dries out and the moving parts freeze together.
I suspect it is the result of bad capacitors that decay over time, but nevertheless it is disappointing.
A lot of banks still use COBOL systems from the 70ies in their backend stack[0]. It might be the same issue with this small C64 for business: "Never touch a running system"
I love this, here is a straightforward technology getting the job done! Too many sophisticated and advanced solution are being built for no reason.
Commodore 64 software is still being developed quite actively by hobbyists, in the form of demoscene productions:
http://www.pouet.net/prodlist.php?platform%5B%5D=Commodore+6...
I recommend anyone curious about retrocomputing to watch a few demos --- it can be quite surprising to see what can be done on hardware orders of magnitude less powerful than available today.
Many shops/stores in Poland still use applications written for DOS for item management and stuff. Sometimes they get an upgrade, meaning they get a Windows install with the application running in DOSBox.
Commodore 64C rather than the plain old 64 I think. Still very impressive! How on earth is that disk drive still working!?
Not to be too nitpicky, but it is not used to run "the auto shop".
It is essentially part of a drive shaft balancing machine. We should think of it as the embedded controller and display of the machine to understand why nobody would replace it while it is still working.
And I'm sure there are plenty of old machines around where some electronics inside are literally or very similar to general purpose computers of the era. But often the physical integration into the machine hides this.
Nevertheless impressive this thing is still running!
There's a liquor store in Washington that was still using C128s for their POS system as recently as a year or so back. They had a couple of spares stashed on the top shelf.
A local chain whose computer rebooted showed it to be using IBM's OS for POS. Last copywrite was 1999. I found out that it was an customized version of Concurrent DOS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concurrent_DOS
Its history is quite amusing compared to some other OS's with better design. Last I heard was that the company's bigger stores upgraded to Fujitsu Linux (???) that runs that DOS system in an emulated or extended way. The backend is SCO Linux and mainframes. The self-checkouts, per the techs, run on Windows Embedded for GUI, the DOS thing emulated in there somehow, and a connection to backends.
It's clear they keep going out of their way with more complex designs and configurations to prevent replacing that relatively-simple DOS app. Hilarious.
I still have a Commodore 64 with its original box and booklet (which includes lessons in programming with BASIC).
My uncle still does inventory for his business (small dancewear retailer) on an Apple II. I believe he recently "upgraded" to the IIgs because he started having trouble getting parts.
In the late nineties I used to work at a Quasar centre (a type of laser tag), and the control system was a two-up DOS display built out of ASCII characters.
Even then, we joked about how old the computer was (a 386 IIRC, a long time back now). It still strikes me that while the hardware in the packs failed pretty often, I can't recall a single crash in that software the entire time I worked with it.
I suspect in retrospect it was statically linked with few to no dependencies, which probably helped a lot.
EDIT: I'm even older than I realized. Shit.
Funny thing with the quote from Commodore USA's Facebook page. These guys are irrelevant to Commodore 64's other than having bought rights to use the name... :P Weird also how their Facebook page is still active, but their website and forum is defunct with no effort made to clarify their situation with their founder deceased since 2012.
There was a similar case of an Amiga used to control GRPS heat and AC in a school: http://woodtv.com/2015/06/11/1980s-computer-controls-grps-he...
Don't change a working system.
I glued a raspberry pi to the back of an old vga monitor I use in the garage to look up stuff on the tubes while pottering. There is no reason why that setup won't still be going strong in 20 years, no moving parts, passive cooling. Very much the same for the commodore I recon.
The tubes of course will move on tech-wise while the pi will get a few years of updates before 2030's firefox is a bit to far for a 2005 arm processor. Another 10 years may pass before a significant number of sites becomes inaccessible on a 10 year old browser. And then it will still be useful as a commodore emulator.
Probably a lot of spaghetti code doing those calculations. Time for a rewrite! ;)
It would be nice to hear more details because there's some discussion around how to replace this technology. An alternative perspective is to ask how much longer will this technology need to run? At what point will the equipment used to balance the drive shafts no longer be necessary because the older vehicles are no longer road worthy? Sure, I'm assuming this setup is for older vehicles, and that's why I'd like to hear more info, but the point is to not simply think about replacing an existing technology when it's better to let it run it's course.
I wonder if there's a local computer shop that supports their computing needs, like repairing the C64.
The waste and exaggeration in computers is astounding. We're driving SUVs when we could be biking.
It seems like there might be some sort of a market for a very simple computer that had every piece of the puzzle well documented and straightforward. Maybe even have just about everything visualized so you can see what is going on with your IO ports, interrupts, etc.
Unfortunately it seems computers just got more complex and less transparent, but with modern technology I would think you could take a step back and make things much more transparent.
I seem to recall reading that the original IBM PC was still in use at United States National Weather Service outposts. Why fix it if it isn't broken?
Btw, there's first video:
http://www.trojmiasto.pl/wiadomosci/Warszatat-samochodowy-za...
It's been about five years since I bought this laptop (refurbished ThinkPad) and I'm sure I'll be using the same laptop another five years down the road. Many people are still using relatively old hardware and it meets most or all of their needs.
At least you don't need to worry about them fixing something that doesn't need fixing.
Are there any real-time operating systems out there currently that both run on modern hardware (maybe a raspberry Pi) and offer a simple programming option (not necessarily Basic, but something similarly approachable)?
This is irresponsible. That machine has been out of support for decades. I bet it's hacked and contributing every bit of its 1 MHz to a massive DDoS.
I think there still is and will be a market for systems with as few resources as possible, as long as they meet most computing needs.
It survived a flood, but how it survived all that industrial dust for so many years?
So many auto shops/machine shops would be lost without access to older computers. So much equipment needs to be plugged into parallel ports.
"If it works, why muck with it?"