Your oldest in-use program...

briantrumpet

Having just bought a new laptop, I've just been installing all the necessary apps/programs, and I've just installed Lotus 123 '97 and Word Pro '97, the only reason being that I've got a basic billing template that I've been using for ages, it works flawlessly, and I can't be bothered to transfer it into Libre Office. Oh, and it's quite fun using a bit of software that is only just one step up from MS DOS (and is therefore a tiny program).

Anyone else using stupidly out-of-date stuff?

chris_bass

things are usually backwards compatible so it'd probably work with the new programs too

TheBigBean

I thought I was old school having Excel 2003 installed. Still better in my opinion.

lesfirth

The garage business I sold in 2002 is still running on the computer system I set up in 1992. The system did not sell that well and the company that developed it did not think it was worth updating when windows came along.There was a bit of a problem a couple of years ago when invoice numbers reached a critical point. It did what was needed 25 years ago and still does.

part time waster

Still use my casio FX730 P . All programs from 1988 , for calculating curve data and other trig sums.
Advertised as a 1K computer , but more of a posh calculator ,posh circa 1988.
its older than some of the engineers I work with !

briantrumpet

part time waster wrote:

Still use my casio FX730 P . All programs from 1988 , for calculating curve data and other trig sums.
Advertised as a 1K computer , but more of a posh calculator ,posh circa 1988.
its older than some of the engineers I work with !

Ha! I think it's unlikely that anyone will pop up saying they're still using a BBC Micro - I remember typing up my dissertation on one, and that it had so little on-board memory that it had to boot up from a floppy disc, and to change the font you had to change the daisy wheel.

I remember reading somewhere that a lot of banking systems, behind all the modern surface, are still running on scripts dating back to the 1960s or 70s, and that there's no realistic prospect of removing our reliance on them, despite their potential for problems.

Frank Wilson

Still use Lotus Approach for all my databases.

The Lotus Smart Suite Disc I have installed on my PC proudly proclaims that it is suitable for Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.0

Alex99

Manic Miner (1983) emulated in Windows. Does that count?

bompington

briantrumpet wrote:

Ha! I think it's unlikely that anyone will pop up saying they're still using a BBC Micro

We still have a working one at school - in the museum corner for sure, but it does work and we fire it up occasionally.

briantrumpet

bompington wrote:

briantrumpet wrote:

Ha! I think it's unlikely that anyone will pop up saying they're still using a BBC Micro

We still have a working one at school - in the museum corner for sure, but it does work and we fire it up occasionally.

...in order to play Frogger? That was what I did if I needed a diversion from writing about the Baroque Trumpet in England Before 1721.

solosuperia

briantrumpet wrote:

I remember reading somewhere that a lot of banking systems, behind all the modern surface, are still running on scripts dating back to the 1960s or 70s, and that there's no realistic prospect of removing our reliance on them, despite their potential for problems.

I'm not so sure about the 60's but a lot of the banking systems were written in COBOL that was designed in 1959 not sure when the language came into commercial use ie used by the banks.
Before I retired 2000+ I know they were looking for Cobol programmers.
Although I had moved on to more modern languages Cobol still has a place in my heart.

briantrumpet

SoloSuperia wrote:

briantrumpet wrote:

I remember reading somewhere that a lot of banking systems, behind all the modern surface, are still running on scripts dating back to the 1960s or 70s, and that there's no realistic prospect of removing our reliance on them, despite their potential for problems.

I'm not so sure about the 60's but a lot of the banking systems were written in COBOL that was designed in 1959 not sure when the language came into commercial use ie used by the banks.
Before I retired 2000+ I know they were looking for Cobol programmers.
Although I had moved on to more modern languages Cobol still has a place in my heart.

Quite an interesting thread here: https://www.quora.com/Why-are-banks-still-using-COBOL

grahamcp

briantrumpet wrote:

SoloSuperia wrote:

briantrumpet wrote:

I remember reading somewhere that a lot of banking systems, behind all the modern surface, are still running on scripts dating back to the 1960s or 70s, and that there's no realistic prospect of removing our reliance on them, despite their potential for problems.

I'm not so sure about the 60's but a lot of the banking systems were written in COBOL that was designed in 1959 not sure when the language came into commercial use ie used by the banks.
Before I retired 2000+ I know they were looking for Cobol programmers.
Although I had moved on to more modern languages Cobol still has a place in my heart.

Quite an interesting thread here: https://www.quora.com/Why-are-banks-still-using-COBOL

Still a lot of COBOL code running out there - I've never worked on banking systems but I do work on IBM mainframes in other sectors and still see it, in fact it's still well supported by the likes of IBM. If I wanted to write (for example) a high performance batch process then I'd likely turn to COBOL - if you have say a few 100K transactions or more on a batch file to process, then every millisecond can count!

Likewise some of the database management systems that originated from the 60s/70s are still around. DB2 in particular, is still widely used (of course it has been developed massively over the years). Likewise IMS, which was originally developed to support the Apollo moon landing.

briantrumpet

Grahamcp wrote:

briantrumpet wrote:

SoloSuperia wrote:

briantrumpet wrote:

I remember reading somewhere that a lot of banking systems, behind all the modern surface, are still running on scripts dating back to the 1960s or 70s, and that there's no realistic prospect of removing our reliance on them, despite their potential for problems.

I'm not so sure about the 60's but a lot of the banking systems were written in COBOL that was designed in 1959 not sure when the language came into commercial use ie used by the banks.
Before I retired 2000+ I know they were looking for Cobol programmers.
Although I had moved on to more modern languages Cobol still has a place in my heart.

Quite an interesting thread here: https://www.quora.com/Why-are-banks-still-using-COBOL

Still a lot of COBOL code running out there - I've never worked on banking systems but I do work on IBM mainframes in other sectors and still see it, in fact it's still well supported by the likes of IBM. If I wanted to write (for example) a high performance batch process then I'd likely turn to COBOL - if you have say a few 100K transactions or more on a batch file to process, then every millisecond can count!

Likewise some of the database management systems that originated from the 60s/70s are still around. DB2 in particular, is still widely used (of course it has been developed massively over the years). Likewise IMS, which was originally developed to support the Apollo moon landing.

I was rubbish at computing at school - I never got beyond

10 PRINT AR5E
20 GOTO 10

...but still find it really interesting that stuff that was already around then (and before) is still being used (because it works reliably for the purpose it was designed for). I wish that some of the tech companies would take note, and try to strip down programs to their bare minimum, and stop adding in features that 99% of users will never, er, use.