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Vintage PCs still in use

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Yzzerdd

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Stay off the road!!!

I got my license today. I was surprised to see that they are still using late 80s vintage PCs in there. Clicky keyboards, green monochrome monitors, dot-matrix printers, the whole 9 yards. As a matter of fact, the vintage PCs are even running finger print scanners, fancy cameras, and digital signature thingys. Pretty cool. I tried to take a picture, but was told that due to the potentially sensitive information on the monitors, I was not allowed. It looked like they were terminals connected potentially to a server or maybe even mini in the back room. That, or they had individual PCs under the counter. Who knows. I saw "Aoos" and "NCR" terminals.

Oh, and while I was with my bro in Guitar Center, I got a look at a late 80s or early 90s Wyse terminal that was being used for the employees to pull up info. It was displaying a paragraph describing that it was a private machine, and was sitting at the "login:" prompt. Pretty cool. Didn't have my camera that time.

Anyone else have a story or picture to share about vintage PCs still in use today?

--Ryan
MOVING TODAY!!! WOOO!

P.S. in WV with my Mom and her bit of the family, I go by Jack and will thusly begin signing it again at the bottom of my messages. This is probably the last time I will be signing as Ryan.
 
I was just at the Credit Union today and they were using IBM terminals of some kind. I didn't recognize them but it looked like the old school terminal/mainframe setup. Model M keyboards too \o/
 
I was on the point of starting a new thread on just this point!
my other half works for the UK Revenue and Customs, and came home a couple of days ago announcing "Do you know that the mainframe computer at VAT central office ( Purchase/sales tax? ) is still the one installed in the 1970s.
Not a PC, I found some old photos. WOW!!!!:eek:
 

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A couple years ago I was at an AutoZone here in town and they had some servers connected with by Twin-Ax cables. I asked them who ran their equipment/servers but it was outsourced.. I wanted some cabling for my 5161's (never did get to try them out due to the hard to find equipment).

The AT&T 7300 I bought was also being used at a school for some multi-user software (I think 4 or 6 people logged into that box and ran it) per the guys comments at the hamfest until a year ago.
 
Yes, occasionally in stores I'll see some modified PC clone dedicated as a purchase terminal running what looks like an MS-DOS screen.

This is a problem I see with technology and specialised systems software. That kind of software tends to be written at great expense, and it's often specific for a particular setup or use. A re-write for a newer OS is a major headache. Not only can it be costly, but it's got to be de-bugged and field tested in tandem with the existing system so that there is virtually no risk of it falling over once implemented. If it does fall over in use, then it can cause a business to come to a screaming halt. It's much more of a hassel than just buying some new hardware.

If the existing older program works there is often the feeling "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Hence, where complex systems in small to medium enterprises are concerned, it's not suprising to see older hardware still around and fulfilling a useful purpose.

Of course eventually the hardware DOES fail, and then there is a much bigger problem.

One thing the Y2K issue (real or not) did was to make IT managers bite the bullet and upgrade their software and hardware prior to 2000. Otherwise most banks would still be using that old COBOL code from the 1960s (perhaps many still are?).

Tez
 
Even with modern PCs in use, I still see DOS text mode -- sometimes even 40x25 -- everywhere: at the bank teller, at the library checkout counter, at the supermarket cashier, even at McDonalds!

In fact, today I saw the strangest thing at a Shop-Rite supermarket: two shopping carts full of CRT monitors. They had just replaced all the monitors of their cash registers with LCD flat panels... still showing the same DOS text mode as before.
 
tezza said:
If the existing older program works there is often the feeling "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Hence, where complex systems in small to medium enterprises are concerned, it's not suprising to see older hardware still around and fulfilling a useful purpose.
Click to expand...
My local county library system ran the SIRSI Dynix system from 1986 until 2002. Most of the WYSE dumb terminals lasted the entire lifespan of the system! The main server ran IBM AIX. Around 1999-2000 they began replacing the patron terminals with PCs running a terminal emulator (previously they had dumb terminals and PCs sitting side-by-side, to provide both card catalog and Internet access). What finally rendered the text-based Dynix system obsolete was the desire to allow at-home Web access to the card catalog. Previously they had a dialup access number for people to use via their modem and terminal emulator on their home PCs.

They even had a few COLOR dumb terminals... amazing stuff!

p.s. Years ago, I believe Tom Hanks was a guest on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and he started talking about his experience at the DMV... he mentioned that the DMV clerk "had the most worn-out computer I've ever seen -- most of the letters were worn off the keys... I think the nameplate said 'UNIVAC'..." (paraphrasing).
 
vwestlife said:
In fact, today I saw the strangest thing at a Shop-Rite supermarket: two shopping carts full of CRT monitors. They had just replaced all the monitors of their cash registers with LCD flat panels... still showing the same DOS text mode as before.
Click to expand...

Should have asked the manager what today's special was on CRTs. Maybe he would've sold them to you for 2 cents a pound ;-)
 
And why not?

One of my clients, the investment department of one of Canada's largest banks, is still running software that was originally installed on Cromemco S-100 Z2 computers in 1980. After several hardware upgrades the Cromemcos were finally retired in 1999 and the system moved to Compaq 286s with minor mods, mostly related to screen handling. Three hardware upgrades later it's currently running on Pentium 4s; of course there have been enhancements to the software along the way, but the core is still the same code originally installed on the Cromemcos and the main reason that replacement is finally being considered now is the difficulty of finding someone who can support it.

mike
 
nige the hippy said:
my other half works for the UK Revenue and Customs, and came home a couple of days ago announcing "Do you know that the mainframe computer at VAT central office ( Purchase/sales tax? ) is still the one installed in the 1970s.
:
Click to expand...

That is a rarity. Most of those machines were retired either because
1) The manufacturers would not renew repair contracts after a certain number of years. Mainly due to spare parts no longer being manufactured.
2) The Y2k problem. It was a better strategy for companies to switched over to PC server systems than to reprogram the old systems. Many old systems were not compatible with the new network topologies.
3) Costs for PC hardware is now way cheaper than proprietary systems. There are also many more software options availible for the newer systems.
 
A LOT of the stuff from my website goes to big companies with legacy equipment stock-piling specific parts against a failure.

I'll never be a big success because, even though I have them by the short and curlies, I can't bring myself to gouge them.

I suppose that makes me look pretty stupid LOL
 
They even had a few COLOR dumb terminals... amazing stuff!
Click to expand...

I work with a system that uses a color graphics terminal it is a Tektronix 4207 - love to have one to hook to an S-100 system. It is very flexible as to what it will display.

The system uses 80286 processor as the main unit and has five 8086 processors as co processors all talking to each other via a SCSI bus. Housed in three Zendex Multibus II chassis in a 19 inch rack. Uses iRMX operating system - it is used to control all of the uplink and downlink equipment used for a ground station.

Jim
 
I once sold a 486 on eBay to a company that needed the motherboard to replace a dead one in a computer that controlled a £500,000 ($1,000,000) laser machine of some kind. They needed a motherboard with EISA slots to take the original hardware!

The London Underground system also uses ancient equipment from the '70s to control signalling, although I've never been able to find out exactly what. I think they are currently going to replace it all soon.
 
dbase III ap in production

dbase III ap in production

I have a client who runs an entire office using a custom dBase III application that was originally created in the 80's and is still in production. We have been supporting it since 1996. At that time it was 10 years old.

We are just now replacing it with PHP and ColdFusion web service and hosting it at my company.

bd
 
dongfeng said:
The London Underground system also uses ancient equipment from the '70s to control signalling, although I've never been able to find out exactly what. I think they are currently going to replace it all soon.
Click to expand...
The longest-running example of an obsolete electronic technology remaining in use has to be DC power in New York City. ConEd finally stopped supplying 120-volt DC power to customers in Manhattan about a year or two ago. This was the last remaining vestige of Thomas Edison's original DC electrical system from the 1880s in New York City.

DC power was effectively obsolete with the introduction of AC in the late 1890s, but New York remained Edison's DC stronghold, and some buildings still continue to use it to power their DC elevator motors, which run much more quietly and smoothly than AC motors. Eventually, Edison's local DC power plants (which had to be placed every few blocks due to the limitations of DC power distributing) had been replaced with AC-to-DC converter stations. ConEd finally gave up maintaining the converter stations, and now the remaining buildings which still use DC power have to convert it themselves from AC.

And as for AC, the U.S. standard of 110-120 volts at 60 Hz didn't become universal until well into the 1950s. In the 1940s, Los Angeles had two separate power grids, one running at 50 Hz and the other at 60 Hz. The Niagra Falls power grid, including upstate New York and much of eastern Canada, ran at 25 Hz until the early '50s. From what I've heard, at least one 25 Hz power plant remains in operation to supply some Canadian factories which use it. The hum and buzz of AC electrical equipment is so pervasive in an industrial environment that these factories have an entirely different "sound" to them, compared to the 60 Hz hum (and many harmonics above) that we are used to.
 
i was just surprised when i went to get my license reinstated there using ps2s 25s and 2 30s and a few 70s and one of those tower ones with the lcd screen. its weird enough to see them being used in every day life but the branch office they were at was just built a year or two ago.

my school still used a apple 2 in the attendance office till they changed people and computers. they had to get me to print off 30 years of atendance records off what seemed like 10s of thousands of diskettes.
 
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