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Our control system at work needs a DOS program to perform diagnostics on the modems controlling communication to our subsea wells. (System made in the mid 90s).
by throwaway20161 11y ago
Our control system at work needs a DOS program to perform diagnostics on the modems controlling communication to our subsea wells. (System made in the mid 90s).
Now when we service these modems the OEM vendor comes with DOS running in a VM on a normal pc. When you know what we we rent this PC for (few $K per month), I just can't help but laugh.
This PC was also not possible to purchase from the OEM.
#oil
- driverdan 11y agoNext time you rent it copy the VM. Problem solved.
- throwaway20161 11y agoYeah that's obvious, but we (operator) aren't legally qualified or allowed to touch this software or communications network. Only the OEM is allowed to use it. So even if we had the VM, we would be legally not be able to use it. We rent the ability for an OEM technician to use the laptop when we send the technician to our site. An added irony is that the protocol is just serial comms over a standard rs232 port. But then on the other hand, you type the wrong thing and you can lose communication with a non trivial amount of a countries oil production (2,5%).