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I've seen some 1980s shit running THIS YEAR. I'm working on porting a foxpro database from 1988 that's running an active business which I won't talk about much

I've seen some 1980s shit running THIS YEAR. I'm working on porting a foxpro database from 1988 that's running an active business which I won't talk about much before it's done, and have actually encountered in Costa Rica an auto parts shop in one of the sketchiest parts of the capital city of this country with a green on black phosphor screen running what looked like dBase III for what they were doing on old IBM PCs. It's pretty crazy what's out there still. I think the one everyone here is familiar with but might not know is really ancient is the travel booking systems for your plane tickets and accommodations, dating back to the 1960s: Karsten Nohl - Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? (33c3) [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjRkpQever4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjRkpQever4

kspacewalk2 5y ago
>I'm working on porting a foxpro database from 1988 that's running an active business which I won't talk about much before it's done, and have actually encountered in Costa Rica an auto parts shop in one of the sketchiest parts of the capital city of this country with a green on black phosphor screen running what looked like dBase III for what they were doing on old IBM PCs. This is amazing value for money. A simple system for a small business working reliably for 30-40 years. In our world of tool churn (often seemingly for its own sake), it's unfathomable. But this is often what the customer really wants from us, they're just afraid to ask out loud for fear of being laughed at.
- Retric 5y ago
  Sometimes their good value, other times their roughly equivalent to using paper.
  - ben_w 5y ago
    Yeah, but that’s still the case with modern computers. Marketing: “With this app, you can now buy pizza on your phone!” Snark: *slaps a yellow pages on the desk along with a rotary dial landline*
  - ska 5y ago
    Sometimes paper is great value too. I'm not saying their aren't horror-shows out there, but technologists drink far too much of their own kool aid, as class.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  I work in software for manufacturing. We were doing a customer panel and someone remarked they weren’t in the market because they “just upgraded their software”. Follow up question revealed that happened 8 or 9 years ago, so you’re pretty spot on.
phonethrowaway 5y ago
Old isn't janky... hmm... to me janky means duct tape and bubble gum.
- fghorow 5y ago
  Kind of like Docker, you mean?
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    Someone: Operating systems are too complicated. Docker: rebuilds virtualized operating system
- jamal-kumar 5y ago
  This basically only runs on A: old hardware + operating system (no go, need to do other workstation tasks at that company), or B: a windows 7 virtual machine with DOS compat set up, anything else isn't working, windows 7 validation servers were recently taken down leaving things in a precarious state of support. That's basically what I would call held together by duct tape at this point
lgierth 5y ago
Oh yeah, man, FoxPro... for a year or so in 2008 I was responsible for a FoxPro database of music venues and artists for an agency. Felt really interesing to maintain a system that's older than me. When we modernized all desktops in the office, I set up Win2k in Qemu on each of them, which loaded the FoxPro thing from a shared network mount. I'm just realizing 19-year-old me never checked if FoxPro supported simultaneous access. It surely did, at least I hope so :-) edit: However, 19-year-old me was smart enough NOT to touch that Solaris or whatever-it-was server hosting the FoxPro thing.
einr 5y ago
Speaking of booking systems, here's an interesting video about a campground in Germany which has been using an Atari ST with custom booking software every day since 1985: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LxPEz9x2fs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LxPEz9x2fs
dylan604 5y ago
A buddy of mine works for a company in a similar situation that rebuilds transmissions for industrial equipment. They were not allowed to upgrade their computers because the one piece of software that makes the whole company "work" is some ancient dBase system that is accessed through DOS. The bids they received to "modernize" it were astronomical mainly to nobody being around that actuall understood the bizLogic involved in a way to rebuild it. I asked what happens if the PSU/HDD/etc of the machine running it dies? I was told that everyone retires. It was an actual conversation that had been given serious thought. At that time, the company was 30+ years old, privately owned and no employee had been there less than 15 years.
- BizarroLand 5y ago
  Sounds like something that could be exported to a virtual machine image and hosted with remote access, unless it runs some proprietary hardware with a PCI interface or something. No need to hang your whole company on a single box's longevity.
EvanAnderson 5y ago
re: FoxPro - It's Visual FoxPro for Windows, which makes it a lot less ancient than 1988, but a significant number of voter registrations in Ohio are handled by a piece of software written in Visual FoxPro. Amusingly the vendor had a mandate to add "2FA" to the application last year. They added TOTP to the "login". All the data is stored in DBF files that all users have read/write access to anyway (because the database engine runs in the user's context on the client PC-- the server is just a dumb disk drive).
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
lakkal 5y ago
I'm working right this second on an application that originated in the mid-late 1980s in dBase II, then moved to FoxBase, then FoxPro and is currently Visual Foxpro. (and I've been developing/supporting this all along, since 1988) Might finally get phased out in 2022... maybe. It does what it does very, very well.

kspacewalk2 5y ago

>I'm working on porting a foxpro database from 1988 that's running an active business which I won't talk about much before it's done, and have actually encountered in Costa Rica an auto parts shop in one of the sketchiest parts of the capital city of this country with a green on black phosphor screen running what looked like dBase III for what they were doing on old IBM PCs. This is amazing value for money. A simple system for a small business working reliably for 30-40 years. In our world of tool churn (often seemingly for its own sake), it's unfathomable. But this is often what the customer really wants from us, they're just afraid to ask out loud for fear of being laughed at.

Retric 5y ago
Sometimes their good value, other times their roughly equivalent to using paper.
- ben_w 5y ago
  Yeah, but that’s still the case with modern computers. Marketing: “With this app, you can now buy pizza on your phone!” Snark: *slaps a yellow pages on the desk along with a rotary dial landline*
- ska 5y ago
  Sometimes paper is great value too. I'm not saying their aren't horror-shows out there, but technologists drink far too much of their own kool aid, as class.
sokoloff 5y ago
I work in software for manufacturing. We were doing a customer panel and someone remarked they weren’t in the market because they “just upgraded their software”. Follow up question revealed that happened 8 or 9 years ago, so you’re pretty spot on.

phonethrowaway 5y ago

Old isn't janky... hmm... to me janky means duct tape and bubble gum.

fghorow 5y ago
Kind of like Docker, you mean?
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Someone: Operating systems are too complicated. Docker: rebuilds virtualized operating system
jamal-kumar 5y ago
This basically only runs on A: old hardware + operating system (no go, need to do other workstation tasks at that company), or B: a windows 7 virtual machine with DOS compat set up, anything else isn't working, windows 7 validation servers were recently taken down leaving things in a precarious state of support. That's basically what I would call held together by duct tape at this point

lgierth 5y ago

Oh yeah, man, FoxPro... for a year or so in 2008 I was responsible for a FoxPro database of music venues and artists for an agency. Felt really interesing to maintain a system that's older than me. When we modernized all desktops in the office, I set up Win2k in Qemu on each of them, which loaded the FoxPro thing from a shared network mount. I'm just realizing 19-year-old me never checked if FoxPro supported simultaneous access. It surely did, at least I hope so :-) edit: However, 19-year-old me was smart enough NOT to touch that Solaris or whatever-it-was server hosting the FoxPro thing.

einr 5y ago

Speaking of booking systems, here's an interesting video about a campground in Germany which has been using an Atari ST with custom booking software every day since 1985: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LxPEz9x2fs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LxPEz9x2fs

dylan604 5y ago

A buddy of mine works for a company in a similar situation that rebuilds transmissions for industrial equipment. They were not allowed to upgrade their computers because the one piece of software that makes the whole company "work" is some ancient dBase system that is accessed through DOS. The bids they received to "modernize" it were astronomical mainly to nobody being around that actuall understood the bizLogic involved in a way to rebuild it. I asked what happens if the PSU/HDD/etc of the machine running it dies? I was told that everyone retires. It was an actual conversation that had been given serious thought. At that time, the company was 30+ years old, privately owned and no employee had been there less than 15 years.

BizarroLand 5y ago
Sounds like something that could be exported to a virtual machine image and hosted with remote access, unless it runs some proprietary hardware with a PCI interface or something. No need to hang your whole company on a single box's longevity.

EvanAnderson 5y ago

re: FoxPro - It's Visual FoxPro for Windows, which makes it a lot less ancient than 1988, but a significant number of voter registrations in Ohio are handled by a piece of software written in Visual FoxPro. Amusingly the vendor had a mandate to add "2FA" to the application last year. They added TOTP to the "login". All the data is stored in DBF files that all users have read/write access to anyway (because the database engine runs in the user's context on the client PC-- the server is just a dumb disk drive).

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

lakkal 5y ago

I'm working right this second on an application that originated in the mid-late 1980s in dBase II, then moved to FoxBase, then FoxPro and is currently Visual Foxpro. (and I've been developing/supporting this all along, since 1988) Might finally get phased out in 2022... maybe. It does what it does very, very well.