4 ms·
I agree with the idea that old computers and OSes might still be useful and that they have a lot of ideas we simply don't even get to experience today. However
by 0xCMP 6y ago
I agree with the idea that old computers and OSes might still be useful and that they have a lot of ideas we simply don't even get to experience today.
However the final points of learning to accept that general purpose computing isn't needed or something is not well worded and in it's current version I completely disagree with. Old hardware can be kept and used for specific, non-general purposes. And new hardware could be made which is locked down for security and maintenance reasons (think... routers or IoT bridges...). But a world where we resign ourselves to machines which are not general computing devices is not one I think we should be moving towards.
- chasil 6y agoLet me give you a more concrete reason to maintain legacy systems. We run a major set of COBOL applications developed under VAX/VMS, running under ACMS, utilizing TDMS. Please note, I can barely spell some of these things, let alone grasp what they do. The application software that my predecessors wrote for these systems supports thousands of users, and is a vertical wall of technical debt. I am far from the decision-maker, but I run the corporate-mandated communication gateways. I just switched my bastions from stunnel-telnet to tinyssh-telnet. At least my keys don't expire now, and the crypto is strict DJB. We make due with what we have. I do the best I can. I respect the work of those that came before (and it signs my paychecks).