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I was asked about 5 years ago to help to keep an application alive that was running on NT, it was doing an extremely important function and could not be replace

I was asked about 5 years ago to help to keep an application alive that was running on NT, it was doing an extremely important function and could not be replaced easily. Nobody knew how long it had been running and the developers obv had long gone I suggested we immediatly isolate all the servers, clients and the network. Create snapshots of the hards disks (on isolated disks) - and try and virtualise the images so they're not tied in to the hardware. as far as I know that thing will keep going forever to the point the tech will be (or already is?) so old not many people could hack it

selfhoster11 5y ago
> as far as I know that thing will keep going forever to the point the tech will be (or already is?) so old not many people could hack it You're underestimating young people's ability to grasp and enjoy obsolete technologies. I am personally fascinated with DOS and Palm OS despite definitely not being around to witness their heydays. Give me a few years and the binaries/manuals people had back in the day, and I will hack it one way or another.
- 123pie123 5y ago
  you're right, I personally think the more people who have this way of thinking the better. but the number of people who can be motivated to do this stuff along with the time required is a much smaller group I've done my fair share of reverse engineering machinecode in the past - I do see it as a puzzle to be solved
- jfrunyon 5y ago
  You're overestimating anyone's ability to spend years trying to hack a single target with documentation that likely no longer exists when there are likely both easier and more profitable targets out there.
  - selfhoster11 5y ago
    The documentation and software is still extant if you know where to look, including in archives created specifically for this purpose. If I didn't have either of those, then obviously I couldn't get very far.

selfhoster11 5y ago

> as far as I know that thing will keep going forever to the point the tech will be (or already is?) so old not many people could hack it You're underestimating young people's ability to grasp and enjoy obsolete technologies. I am personally fascinated with DOS and Palm OS despite definitely not being around to witness their heydays. Give me a few years and the binaries/manuals people had back in the day, and I will hack it one way or another.

123pie123 5y ago
you're right, I personally think the more people who have this way of thinking the better. but the number of people who can be motivated to do this stuff along with the time required is a much smaller group I've done my fair share of reverse engineering machinecode in the past - I do see it as a puzzle to be solved
jfrunyon 5y ago
You're overestimating anyone's ability to spend years trying to hack a single target with documentation that likely no longer exists when there are likely both easier and more profitable targets out there.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  The documentation and software is still extant if you know where to look, including in archives created specifically for this purpose. If I didn't have either of those, then obviously I couldn't get very far.