Groups > alt.folklore.computers > #218654 > unrolled thread

What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work?

Started by	Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com>
First post	2021-09-05 09:55 +0000
Last post	2021-10-08 07:27 -0700
Articles	20 on this page of 224 — 41 participants

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#219366

From	Maus <Greymaus@mail.com>
Date	2021-10-06 07:52 +0000
Message-ID	<slrnslqldn.2ds.Greymaus@dmaus.org>
In reply to	#219334

On 2021-10-05, Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Maus <Greymaus@mail.com> wrote:
>> On 2021-10-05, Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> example, seem to want to control anything anyone might say about them.
>>> 
>>> Free Hong Kong!
>> 
>> With every pack of cornflakes?
>> 
>> Do a bit of history reading. Hong Kong was set during the opium wars to
>> ease the smuggling of opium into china. Not England's finest hour.
>> 
>> 
>
> Sure, but most recently they were relatively free and democratic, and were
> an financial powerhouse. Now the first two are gone, and the third is
> circling the drain.
>


I read a few years ago that HK'ers had bought a lot of property in
Vancouver but had not moved there, leaving property there in an odd
situation. Perhaps Charlie can elucidate?..  Boris promised 120,000
visas to people who wanted to get out of HK. Talk about going to the
sinking ship. 

-- 
greymausg@mail.com
That's not a mousehole!

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#219389 — Re: empty buildings was What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work?

From	John Levine <johnl@taugh.com>
Date	2021-10-06 18:46 +0000
Subject	Re: empty buildings was What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work?
Message-ID	<sjkqtf$28ua$2@gal.iecc.com>
In reply to	#219366

According to Maus  <rhunDARNtheSPAM@DARNtheSPAMkatamailDARNtheSPAM.com>:
>> Sure, but most recently they were relatively free and democratic, and were
>> an financial powerhouse. Now the first two are gone, and the third is
>> circling the drain.
>
>I read a few years ago that HK'ers had bought a lot of property in
>Vancouver but had not moved there, leaving property there in an odd
>situation. Perhaps Charlie can elucidate?

Vancouver has luxury apartment blocks that are dark at night because
nobody lives there. So do Toronto and NY, but I gather it's worse in
Vancouver. It's one of the reasons that Vancouver real estate is
completely unnafordable to normal people. They have made weak attempts
to control it with surtaxes on unoccupied foreign owned flats, but the
far worse problem is that most of the city is zoned to prohibit
anything denser than detatched single houses and to require vast parking
garages for multi-unit structures.

a First Nations tribe that owns a large chunk of Vancouver real estate
recently voted to develop it with 50 story mixed use towers that will
both provide housing to their members and a lot of other people and
businesses, and with more transit access and much less parking than
the city would require. They can do that because they can ignore the
city's zoning.

-- 
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

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#219393 — Re: empty buildings was What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work?

From	Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid>
Date	2021-10-06 20:50 +0000
Subject	Re: empty buildings was What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work?
Message-ID	<n_n7J.73165$ol1.60820@fx42.iad>
In reply to	#219389

On 2021-10-06, John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:

> According to Maus  <rhunDARNtheSPAM@DARNtheSPAMkatamailDARNtheSPAM.com>:
>
>>> Sure, but most recently they were relatively free and democratic, and were
>>> an financial powerhouse. Now the first two are gone, and the third is
>>> circling the drain.
>>
>> I read a few years ago that HK'ers had bought a lot of property in
>> Vancouver but had not moved there, leaving property there in an odd
>> situation. Perhaps Charlie can elucidate?
>
> Vancouver has luxury apartment blocks that are dark at night because
> nobody lives there. So do Toronto and NY, but I gather it's worse in
> Vancouver. It's one of the reasons that Vancouver real estate is
> completely unnafordable to normal people. They have made weak attempts
> to control it with surtaxes on unoccupied foreign owned flats, but the
> far worse problem is that most of the city is zoned to prohibit
> anything denser than detatched single houses and to require vast parking
> garages for multi-unit structures.

Zoning changes move slowly, but if you're a rich enough developer you
can get it done.  Council has begun to listen to developers' crocodile
tears about the costs of including parking garages in new towers, and
is even talking about passing bylaws prohibiting adequate parking from
being built, as part of a war against vehicular traffic that they have
been waging for decades.  It's easier - and more fun - to make life
miserable for those who dare to take a car downtown than it is to make
life easier for those who are willing to take transit - even if that
takes three times as long.

> a First Nations tribe that owns a large chunk of Vancouver real estate
> recently voted to develop it with 50 story mixed use towers that will
> both provide housing to their members and a lot of other people and
> businesses, and with more transit access and much less parking than
> the city would require. They can do that because they can ignore the
> city's zoning.

The city is too busy going after buildings consisting of a row of
storefronts with one or two storeys of apartments above them for
shopkeepers, etc.  Under a policy they call "highest and best use"
(gag), they're taxing these buildings as if they were 50-storey
mixed-use towers, which is killing the small businesses that occupy
the ground floor.  Once those businesses been gotten rid of, the
deserted hulks of these buildings be torn down and another 50-storey
tower built.  And they still talk about "building communities".  Feh.

-- 
/~\  Charlie Gibbs                  |  Life is perverse.
\ /  <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid>      |  It can be beautiful -
 X   I'm really at ac.dekanfrus     |  but it won't.
/ \  if you read it the right way.  |    -- Lily Tomlin

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#219402 — Re: empty buildings was What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work?

From	Maus <Greymaus@mail.com>
Date	2021-10-07 10:52 +0000
Subject	Re: empty buildings was What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work?
Message-ID	<slrnsltkc9.4mf.Greymaus@dmaus.org>
In reply to	#219389

On 2021-10-06, John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:
> According to Maus  <rhunDARNtheSPAM@DARNtheSPAMkatamailDARNtheSPAM.com>:
>>> Sure, but most recently they were relatively free and democratic, and were
>>> an financial powerhouse. Now the first two are gone, and the third is
>>> circling the drain.
>>
>>I read a few years ago that HK'ers had bought a lot of property in
>>Vancouver but had not moved there, leaving property there in an odd
>>situation. Perhaps Charlie can elucidate?
>
> Vancouver has luxury apartment blocks that are dark at night because
> nobody lives there. So do Toronto and NY, but I gather it's worse in
> Vancouver. It's one of the reasons that Vancouver real estate is
> completely unnafordable to normal people. They have made weak attempts
> to control it with surtaxes on unoccupied foreign owned flats, but the
> far worse problem is that most of the city is zoned to prohibit
> anything denser than detatched single houses and to require vast parking
> garages for multi-unit structures.
>
> a First Nations tribe that owns a large chunk of Vancouver real estate
> recently voted to develop it with 50 story mixed use towers that will
> both provide housing to their members and a lot of other people and
> businesses, and with more transit access and much less parking than
> the city would require. They can do that because they can ignore the
> city's zoning.
>

Ta

-- 
greymausg@mail.com
That's not a mousehole!

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#219392

From	Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid>
Date	2021-10-06 20:24 +0000
Message-ID	<TBn7J.106553$g81.38538@fx33.iad>
In reply to	#219366

On 2021-10-06, Maus <Greymaus@mail.com> wrote:

> On 2021-10-05, Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Maus <Greymaus@mail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 2021-10-05, Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> example, seem to want to control anything anyone might say about them.
>>>> 
>>>> Free Hong Kong!
>>> 
>>> With every pack of cornflakes?
>>> 
>>> Do a bit of history reading. Hong Kong was set during the opium wars to
>>> ease the smuggling of opium into china. Not England's finest hour.
>>
>> Sure, but most recently they were relatively free and democratic, and were
>> an financial powerhouse. Now the first two are gone, and the third is
>> circling the drain.
>
> I read a few years ago that HK'ers had bought a lot of property in
> Vancouver but had not moved there, leaving property there in an odd
> situation. Perhaps Charlie can elucidate?..

HK-bashers are plentiful here, and there is a rising tide of anti-Asian
sentiment (which, as usual, is ill-conceived).  Housing prices are now
among the highest in the world.  This is considered a Good Thing by
developers, realtors, and the governments that they've bought, and any
slacking of housing prices' meteoric rise is considered a grave situation
by these parties.  The provincial government has brought in a "speculation
tax" in an attempt to discourage foreign speculators - while remaining
suspiciously silent regarding domestic speculators.  There's even been
talk about housing subsidies so people can buy condos without housing
prices leveling off or - horrors! - falling to an affordable level.

-- 
/~\  Charlie Gibbs                  |  Life is perverse.
\ /  <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid>      |  It can be beautiful -
 X   I'm really at ac.dekanfrus     |  but it won't.
/ \  if you read it the right way.  |    -- Lily Tomlin

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#219403

From	Maus <Greymaus@mail.com>
Date	2021-10-07 10:57 +0000
Message-ID	<slrnsltkl7.4mf.Greymaus@dmaus.org>
In reply to	#219392

On 2021-10-06, Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
> On 2021-10-06, Maus <Greymaus@mail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 2021-10-05, Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Maus <Greymaus@mail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>
>> I read a few years ago that HK'ers had bought a lot of property in
>> Vancouver but had not moved there, leaving property there in an odd
>> situation. Perhaps Charlie can elucidate?..
>
> HK-bashers are plentiful here, and there is a rising tide of anti-Asian
> sentiment (which, as usual, is ill-conceived).  Housing prices are now
> among the highest in the world.  This is considered a Good Thing by
> developers, realtors, and the governments that they've bought, and any
> slacking of housing prices' meteoric rise is considered a grave situation
> by these parties.  The provincial government has brought in a "speculation
> tax" in an attempt to discourage foreign speculators - while remaining
> suspiciously silent regarding domestic speculators.  There's even been
> talk about housing subsidies so people can buy condos without housing
> prices leveling off or - horrors! - falling to an affordable level.
>

As usual, the popular view is wrong. The problem is deeper, and will not
be solved by attacking the `usual suspects'. Subsidies only encourage
sellers to raise prices.


-- 
greymausg@mail.com
That's not a mousehole!

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#219338

From	scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)
Date	2021-10-05 14:11 +0000
Message-ID	<f2Z6J.72490$ol1.15794@fx42.iad>
In reply to	#219317

Maus <Greymaus@mail.com> writes:
>On 2021-10-05, Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:


>>> Well if you write evil someone will stop you :P
>>>
>> What’s evil to one may not be evil to another. The crazy Chinese, for
>> example, seem to want to control anything anyone might say about them.
>>
>> Free Hong Kong!
>
>With every pack of cornflakes?
>
>Do a bit of history reading. Hong Kong was set during the opium wars to
>ease the smuggling of opium into china. Not England's finest hour.

Indeed.  Hence their invasion of Kabul in the 1840s and various
idiocies in what is now India and Pakistan, just to secure the
supply line.

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#218895

From	Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de>
Date	2021-09-18 09:23 +0000
Message-ID	<si4b6o$sce$3@newsreader4.netcologne.de>
In reply to	#218892

Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> schrieb:
> On Sat, 18 Sep 2021 04:07:50 -0000 (UTC)
> John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:
>
>> According to Branimir Maksimovic  <branimir.maksimovic@gmail.com>:
>> >> You can still run programs compiled on a 360 on the latest “z” box.
>> >>
>> >Why?
>> 
>> Because they are still useful?  Is this a trick question?
>
> 	I suppose the real question is why not recompile them to take
> advantage of the newer hardware.

Recompile?

You mean re-assemble?

>I know during Y2K work that a lot of
> instances of lost source code came to light, are people still running
> binaries for which there is no source ?

AFAIK, people still use commercial software like Microsoft Windows.
One can presume that Microsoft has the source, but most users
certainly don't (and for the user, this amounts to the same thing).

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#218903

From	Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com>
Date	2021-09-18 11:02 -0700
Message-ID	<320199871.653680018.348391.peter_flass-yahoo.com@news.eternal-september.org>
In reply to	#218895

Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> wrote:
> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> schrieb:
>> On Sat, 18 Sep 2021 04:07:50 -0000 (UTC)
>> John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> According to Branimir Maksimovic  <branimir.maksimovic@gmail.com>:
>>>>> You can still run programs compiled on a 360 on the latest “z” box.
>>>>> 
>>>> Why?
>>> 
>>> Because they are still useful?  Is this a trick question?
>> 
>> I suppose the real question is why not recompile them to take
>> advantage of the newer hardware.
> 
> Recompile?
> 
> You mean re-assemble?
> 
>> I know during Y2K work that a lot of
>> instances of lost source code came to light, are people still running
>> binaries for which there is no source ?

There was a lot of this during conversions from 1401 to S/360. People
tended to patch the 1401 object decks rather than change the source and
recompile. If the source hadn’t been lost, it likely didn’t reflect the
running program. 

> 
> AFAIK, people still use commercial software like Microsoft Windows.
> One can presume that Microsoft has the source, but most users
> certainly don't (and for the user, this amounts to the same thing).
> 



-- 
Pete

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#218910

From	Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com>
Date	2021-09-18 17:50 -0400
Message-ID	<si5mvm$d5j$2@dont-email.me>
In reply to	#218903

Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:

> Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> wrote:
>> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> schrieb:
>>> On Sat, 18 Sep 2021 04:07:50 -0000 (UTC)
>>> John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> According to Branimir Maksimovic  <branimir.maksimovic@gmail.com>:
>>>>>> You can still run programs compiled on a 360 on the latest “z” box.
>>>>>> 
>>>>> Why?
>>>> 
>>>> Because they are still useful?  Is this a trick question?
>>> 
>>> I suppose the real question is why not recompile them to take
>>> advantage of the newer hardware.
>> 
>> Recompile?
>> 
>> You mean re-assemble?
>> 
>>> I know during Y2K work that a lot of
>>> instances of lost source code came to light, are people still running
>>> binaries for which there is no source ?
>
> There was a lot of this during conversions from 1401 to S/360. People
> tended to patch the 1401 object decks rather than change the source and
> recompile. If the source hadn’t been lost, it likely didn’t reflect the
> running program. 

During my long career I ran into very few instances of missing source.
Only 1 comes to mind.

As I remember, operations would not accept an object deck with patches.
At the same time they accepted the new object deck they
secured the source code and listing.

-- 
Dan Espen

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#218906

From	John Levine <johnl@taugh.com>
Date	2021-09-18 18:20 +0000
Message-ID	<si5al6$o0p$2@gal.iecc.com>
In reply to	#218892

It appears that Ahem A Rivet's Shot  <steveo@eircom.net> said:
>On Sat, 18 Sep 2021 04:07:50 -0000 (UTC)
>John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:
>
>> According to Branimir Maksimovic  <branimir.maksimovic@gmail.com>:
>> >> You can still run programs compiled on a 360 on the latest “z” box.
>> >>
>> >Why?
>> 
>> Because they are still useful?  Is this a trick question?
>
>	I suppose the real question is why not recompile them to take
>advantage of the newer hardware.

A lot of 360 software was written in assembler.  I gather a fair amount still is.
For some they still have the source, some they don't, but even if they do, it's assembler.

The newer hardware has bigger addresses and some more instructions but they don't run any faster.
If you look at the zSeries principles of operation you can see the many hacks they invented to
let old 24 bit addresss 360 code work with more modern 31 and 64 bit code.

-- 
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

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#218908

From	J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com>
Date	2021-09-18 16:13 -0400
Message-ID	<7qhckgl7162ss26jecqhabq8efps63kmms@4ax.com>
In reply to	#218906

On Sat, 18 Sep 2021 18:20:22 -0000 (UTC), John Levine
<johnl@taugh.com> wrote:

>It appears that Ahem A Rivet's Shot  <steveo@eircom.net> said:
>>On Sat, 18 Sep 2021 04:07:50 -0000 (UTC)
>>John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:
>>
>>> According to Branimir Maksimovic  <branimir.maksimovic@gmail.com>:
>>> >> You can still run programs compiled on a 360 on the latest “z” box.
>>> >>
>>> >Why?
>>> 
>>> Because they are still useful?  Is this a trick question?
>>
>>	I suppose the real question is why not recompile them to take
>>advantage of the newer hardware.
>
>A lot of 360 software was written in assembler.  I gather a fair amount still is.
>For some they still have the source, some they don't, but even if they do, it's assembler.
>
>The newer hardware has bigger addresses and some more instructions but they don't run any faster.
>If you look at the zSeries principles of operation you can see the many hacks they invented to
>let old 24 bit addresss 360 code work with more modern 31 and 64 bit code.

Something that ran adequately on a machine with a 10 MHz clock will
generally run so much more than adequately on a machine with a 5 GHz
clock that there's not much incentive to optimize anyway.

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#218911

From	Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de>
Date	2021-09-18 22:30 +0000
Message-ID	<si5p9u$u3j$1@newsreader4.netcologne.de>
In reply to	#218908

J  Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> schrieb:
> On Sat, 18 Sep 2021 18:20:22 -0000 (UTC), John Levine
><johnl@taugh.com> wrote:
>
>>It appears that Ahem A Rivet's Shot  <steveo@eircom.net> said:
>>>On Sat, 18 Sep 2021 04:07:50 -0000 (UTC)
>>>John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> According to Branimir Maksimovic  <branimir.maksimovic@gmail.com>:
>>>> >> You can still run programs compiled on a 360 on the latest “z” box.
>>>> >>
>>>> >Why?
>>>> 
>>>> Because they are still useful?  Is this a trick question?
>>>
>>>	I suppose the real question is why not recompile them to take
>>>advantage of the newer hardware.
>>
>>A lot of 360 software was written in assembler.  I gather a fair amount still is.
>>For some they still have the source, some they don't, but even if they do, it's assembler.
>>
>>The newer hardware has bigger addresses and some more instructions but they don't run any faster.
>>If you look at the zSeries principles of operation you can see the many hacks they invented to
>>let old 24 bit addresss 360 code work with more modern 31 and 64 bit code.
>
> Something that ran adequately on a machine with a 10 MHz clock will
> generally run so much more than adequately on a machine with a 5 GHz
> clock that there's not much incentive to optimize anyway.  

There are a couple of things that could go wrong, though, especially
if the problem sizes have grown, as they tend to do.

Tradeoffs between disk speed and memory made in the 1980s may not
work as well when the relative performances of CPU and discs have
diverged as much as they did, and there is a factor of 10^n more
data to process, and all of a sudden you find there is this
n^2 algorithm hidden somewhere...

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#218913

From	John Levine <johnl@taugh.com>
Date	2021-09-19 01:55 +0000
Message-ID	<si65aa$2gms$1@gal.iecc.com>
In reply to	#218911

According to Thomas Koenig  <tkoenig@netcologne.de>:
>>>>> >> You can still run programs compiled on a 360 on the latest “z” box.

>There are a couple of things that could go wrong, though, especially
>if the problem sizes have grown, as they tend to do.
>
>Tradeoffs between disk speed and memory made in the 1980s may not
>work as well when the relative performances of CPU and discs have
>diverged as much as they did, and there is a factor of 10^n more
>data to process, and all of a sudden you find there is this
>n^2 algorithm hidden somewhere...

Nobody is claiming we still run *all* of the code written in the 1960s.

I gather there is some code where for financial reasons it has to produce
results the same as what it has produced for the past forty years, even
though the programmer who wrote it has retired or died, even though
the results may depend on funky details of the 360's ill-designed floating
point, or of shift-and-round-decimal instructions where for some reason
it uses a rounding digit of 6 rather than the normal 5.

It can be worth a lot to keep running the actual code rather than trying
to reverse engineer it and hope you got all the warts right for every case.
-- 
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

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#218914

From	J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com>
Date	2021-09-18 22:08 -0400
Message-ID	<3j6dkg1laucj38qs3nd7c154h9i8p6c1ka@4ax.com>
In reply to	#218913

On Sun, 19 Sep 2021 01:55:22 -0000 (UTC), John Levine
<johnl@taugh.com> wrote:

>According to Thomas Koenig  <tkoenig@netcologne.de>:
>>>>>> >> You can still run programs compiled on a 360 on the latest “z” box.
>
>>There are a couple of things that could go wrong, though, especially
>>if the problem sizes have grown, as they tend to do.
>>
>>Tradeoffs between disk speed and memory made in the 1980s may not
>>work as well when the relative performances of CPU and discs have
>>diverged as much as they did, and there is a factor of 10^n more
>>data to process, and all of a sudden you find there is this
>>n^2 algorithm hidden somewhere...
>
>Nobody is claiming we still run *all* of the code written in the 1960s.
>
>I gather there is some code where for financial reasons it has to produce
>results the same as what it has produced for the past forty years, even
>though the programmer who wrote it has retired or died, even though
>the results may depend on funky details of the 360's ill-designed floating
>point, or of shift-and-round-decimal instructions where for some reason
>it uses a rounding digit of 6 rather than the normal 5.
>
>It can be worth a lot to keep running the actual code rather than trying
>to reverse engineer it and hope you got all the warts right for every case.

That's something that I live.  If there's a mismatch we don't let it
slide, we learn the reason why.  When you have assets under management
that look like the National Debt a little tiny mistake can be a huge
lawsuit.

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#218915

From	Bob Eager <news0009@eager.cx>
Date	2021-09-19 06:22 +0000
Message-ID	<iqo388Fnil1U5@mid.individual.net>
In reply to	#218913

On Sun, 19 Sep 2021 01:55:22 +0000, John Levine wrote:

> I gather there is some code where for financial reasons it has to
> produce results the same as what it has produced for the past forty
> years, even though the programmer who wrote it has retired or died, even
> though the results may depend on funky details of the 360's ill-designed
> floating point, or of shift-and-round-decimal instructions where for
> some reason it uses a rounding digit of 6 rather than the normal 5.

Do you have a reference to anything on that rounding decision? It's 
actually relevant to something I'm working on...



-- 
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
 http://www.mirrorservice.org

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#218920

From	John Levine <johnl@taugh.com>
Date	2021-09-20 03:24 +0000
Message-ID	<si8utg$23d9$1@gal.iecc.com>
In reply to	#218915

According to Bob Eager  <news0009@eager.cx>:
>On Sun, 19 Sep 2021 01:55:22 +0000, John Levine wrote:
>
>> I gather there is some code where for financial reasons it has to
>> produce results the same as what it has produced for the past forty
>> years, even though the programmer who wrote it has retired or died, even
>> though the results may depend on funky details of the 360's ill-designed
>> floating point, or of shift-and-round-decimal instructions where for
>> some reason it uses a rounding digit of 6 rather than the normal 5.
>
>Do you have a reference to anything on that rounding decision? It's 
>actually relevant to something I'm working on...

Sorry, it's a real instruction but a hypothetical example.

The closest I got to this was back in the 1980s when I was working on a modelling package called Javelin
and I had to write the functions that computed bond prices and yields.  The securities association published
a pamphlet with the algorithms and examples, and needless to say my code wasn't done until it got all the
examples exactly correct.  Some of the calculations were rather odd like the ones that decreed that a year
has 360 days.

-- 
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

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#218902

From	Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com>
Date	2021-09-18 11:02 -0700
Message-ID	<1146016602.653679938.855638.peter_flass-yahoo.com@news.eternal-september.org>
In reply to	#218889

Branimir Maksimovic <branimir.maksimovic@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2021-09-08, Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org> wrote:
>>> On 2021-09-07, J  Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> https://governor.kansas.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GintherTaxCouncilKDOT.pdf
>>>>> hints that it may be an IBM System 370/Model 145.
>>>> 
>>>> I'd be very surprised if it actually was.  When did IBM end
>>>> maintenance on those?
>>> 
>>> I have no more information, other than that link claims "The Kansas UI System
>>> runs on a Mainframe that was installed in 1977."
>>> 
>>> Is it possible the hardware was upgraded to something that can emulate the
>>> 370/145, and that difference was lost on a non-technical author?  Sure.
>>> 
>>> I have known other places to run mainframes an absurdly long time.  I've seen it
>>> in universities and, of course, there's the famous CompuServe PDP-10 story -
>>> though presumably they had more technical know-how to keep their PDP-10s alive.
>>> You are right; it does seem farfetched.
>>> 
>>> ... so I did some more digging, and found
>>> https://ldh.la.gov/assets/medicaid/mmis/docs/IVVRProcurementLibrary/Section3RelevantCorporateExperienceCorporateFinancialCondition.doc
>>> which claims that the "legacy UI system applications run on the Kansas
>>> Department of Administration's OBM OS/390 mainframe."
>>> 
>>> I know little of IBM's mainframe lineup, but
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System/390 claims that the System/390 has some
>>> level of compatibility with the S/370.
>>> 
>>> - John
>>> 
>> 
>> You can still run programs compiled on a 360 on the latest “z” box.
>> 
> Why?
> 

Because they still work, and do what you need them to do. If it works,
leave it alone.

-- 
Pete

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#218736

From	scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)
Date	2021-09-07 15:08 +0000
Message-ID	<ofLZI.29792$z%4.14124@fx37.iad>
In reply to	#218721

John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org> writes:
>On 2021-09-05, Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> wrote:
>> First of all, what is "real work"? Let's say that you're a Linux/Unix/BSD
>> system administrator who spends 90% of his day on the command line. What is

>
>The DEC PDP-10 was introduced in 1966 and was famously used by CompuServe up
>until at least 2007, 41 years later.
>
>Here's an article from 2008 about how Seattle still uses DEC VAXes (released
>1977):
>https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/education/dinosaur-computer-stalls-seattle-schools-plans/
>
>Here's an article from just last year about how Kansas is still using a
>mainframe from 1977 to manage unemployment claims:
>https://www.kctv5.com/coronavirus/kansas-department-of-labor-mainframe-is-from-1977/article_40459370-7ac4-11ea-b4db-df529463a7d4.html

Burroughs medium systems, introduced in 1965, were still running the city of
Santa Ana until 2010 (that system was donated to the Living Computer Museum
who ran it for a couple of years thereafter.

I've a Burroughs/Unisys T27 block-mode terminal hooked up to a medium systems simulator that
still runs today.

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#218958

From	"Carlos E. R." <robin_listas@es.invalid>
Date	2021-09-24 03:41 +0200
Message-ID	<mumv1ixouv.ln2@minas-tirith.valinor>
In reply to	#218654

On 05/09/2021 11.55, Jason Evans wrote:
> I know this is an odd question, so let me explain what I'm thinking.
> 
> First of all, what is "real work"? Let's say that you're a Linux/Unix/BSD 
> system administrator who spends 90% of his day on the command line. What is 
> the oldest computer that he could get by with to do his job?

Voyager 1, launched 1977, still running. It is doing the job for which
it was programmed.

What about the navigation computers for all the nuclear missiles
built... when? 60's?

-- 
Cheers,
       Carlos E.R.

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What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work?

Contents

#219366

#219389 — Re: empty buildings was What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work?

#219393 — Re: empty buildings was What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work?

#219402 — Re: empty buildings was What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work?

#219392

#219403

#219338

#218895

#218903

#218910

#218906

#218908

#218911

#218913

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#218920

#218902

#218736

#218958