A System Using an Ancient OS: Another thread reminded me of this. There is a very important software system running somewhere, and it's using a really old OS

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Another thread reminded me of this. There is a very important software system running somewhere, and it's using a really old OS - pre-Windows. It was discussed here quite a while ago. Does anyone know what it is?

promfh Loc: Redwood City, CA, USA

MS-DOS (Disk Operating System) or CPM (Computer Program Manager) ??
Perhaps UNIX (SVR5) ?

Kozan Loc: Trenton Tennessee

promfh wrote:

MS-DOS (Disk Operating System) or CPM (Computer Program Manager) ??
Perhaps UNIX (SVR5) ?

The earliest operating system I remember is CP/M around 1978. I think the computer was a Zenith and it used 8 inch floppy disks.

I loved MS-DOS 6.22 when it came out. Still have 6.22 operating system on 3.5" floppies.

pendennis

Before I retired, in 2007, our company ran numerous PC's using MS/DOS. They were primarily used for gathering manufacturing data, such as tool torque settings used on vehicle parts. You don't really need a fancy OS, since you're just gathering data The PC's were just passing through data to larger servers. An optical scanner gathered the vehicle ID number, then the settings and number of cycles.

The QC and engineering folks used for potential recalls, and tool and part improvements.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Kozan wrote:

The earliest operating system I remember is CP/M around 1978. I think the computer was a Zenith and it used 8 inch floppy disks.

...

I remember it existing in 1975. 8080 based.

Anhanga Brasil Loc: Cabo Frio - Brazil

Kozan wrote:

The earliest operating system I remember is CP/M around 1978. I think the computer was a Zenith and it used 8 inch floppy disks.

I loved MS-DOS 6.22 when it came out. Still have 6.22 operating system on 3.5" floppies.

Me too. My life was under MS-DOS 6.22, but, before
that there was the MicroSoft eXtended (MSX) OS.
I have done things with it in Assembly that were amazing,
including 16 colors Fractals. Way too cool.
Incredible software written with only 8 and 16 KB of code.

cedymock Loc: Irmo, South Carolina

1971 Fortran IV was still being taught at college level.

First appeared 1957; 62 years ago
Fortran is still being used today. People use it whenever C isn't fast enough. Which is generally during the processing of giant multidimensional matrices for scientific purposes. After 60 years of compiler development Fortran beats all-comers in this particular niche.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I might think of it eventually. I don't remember many details, but it was easier using an old system that worked rather than converting everything to a new OS.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Anhanga Brasil wrote:

Me too. My life was under MS-DOS 6.22, but, before
that there was the MicroSoft eXtended (MSX) OS.
I have done things with it in Assembly that were amazing,
including 16 colors Fractals. Way too cool.
Incredible software written with only 8 and 16 KB of code.

I remember DOS 3.3 as the standard. It was very versatile - as long as you know those obtuse commands.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

cedymock wrote:

1971 Fortran IV was still being taught at college level.

First appeared 1957; 62 years ago
Fortran is still being used today. People use it whenever C isn't fast enough. Which is generally during the processing of giant multidimensional matrices for scientific purposes. After 60 years of compiler development Fortran beats all-comers in this particular niche.

Yup, I was weened on FORTRAN (IV & V) in 1972. ( //FWCLG

)
I never got into C or C++ though; did Assembly, BASIC and QB-45, Clipper, dBase-IV, and a few others.
Now I only play in HTML, PHP, and a minuscule amount of JavaScript.

pmorin Loc: Huntington Beach, Palm Springs

Longshadow wrote:

img src="https://static.uglyhedgehog.com/images/s... (show quote)

I can remember taking some night classes in BASIC, then FORTRAN in Tucson in 1981. The knowledge never stuck because by then I was deep into getting an A&P license and computers were just a novelty to me. Never did get my certification though, life sent me somewhere else.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

pmorin wrote:

I can remember taking some night classes in BASIC, then FORTRAN in Tucson in 1981. The knowledge never stuck because by then I was deep into getting an A&P license and computers were just a novelty to me. Never did get my certification though, life sent me somewhere else.

Computers were fun. Wound up using them 95% of my job. Got into the guts very early on.
Loved maintenance panels.
Now they're just, ...well, ...computers.

twowindsbear

Ca 1975-1975. Honeywell 2050 mainframe. Student worker in the univ data center. The students' programs were FORTAN, COBOL, and assembly language. The OS was called Disc Operating System, as I recall. I do recall entering a few commands into the console to load & run jobs & then print them.

pmorin Loc: Huntington Beach, Palm Springs

Longshadow wrote:

Computers were fun. Wound up using them 95% of my job. Got into the guts very early on.
Loved maintenance panels.
Now they're just, ...well, ...computers.

I put a few of them together back in the 90’s, but its easier to just buy them outright now. Especially the Apple designed systems. I bought an iMac last year and I think it's going to be around for a very long time. Hopefully, I will never need another.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

I started with OS/360 on IBM 360 mainframes in 1965 running FORTRAN and COBOL, then Univac EXEC 8 running SAAL. Years later, with the advent of microprocessors, we wrote in machine language for the Motorola 6800 and Intel 8080/8086 and the Zilog Z80, then CPM 86, and a bunch of different versions of UNIX (DGUX, HPUX, Solaris, etc), then MS DOS (and OS2). In the real-time embedded computing world, we ran OS-9, PSOS and Wind River’s VX-works. At NetApp, we ran DataOnTap, and now we’re in the MacOS, OSX, Windows and Linux world. What have I left out?

Just a piece of computer OS trivia/history: some of us from NetApp were standing in the lobby of Red Hat (they were a customer) talking to the founders the day they went public. We were talking among ourselves about how a support company was trying to style itself as an OS company and how it would never evolve to that long-term. Just shows how wrong so called “computer savvy” geeks can be.