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Control systems often last decades, longer than most employees. I've recently worked on a control system that is at least 30 years old. While you can't get th

Control systems often last decades, longer than most employees. I've recently worked on a control system that is at least 30 years old. While you can't get the exact part any more - you can still get compatible replacements that drop in. There are still staff that are competent working with the platform. They should be upgrading over the years, unless you think working with a MS-DOS computer would be advisable today. Most education sectors use a large vendors control system with either vendor engineers, or local contractors.

donatj 4y ago
Honestly, even today I would trust a system running MS-DOS far further than anything running Windows. The number of gas pumps I’ve seen blue screened and kiosks running Windows Update… The only thing a more modern computer buys you is added complexity and more to go wrong. More RAM than your process needs? More to corrupt. What percentage of crud/resident processes on a “modern” is even related to the task we are assigning this machine? Less than 1%? It’s absurd. It’s like buying a Swiss Army knife with a million attachments to build a house. You can, but you shouldn’t.
pjmorris 4y ago
> Control systems often last decades, longer than most employees. ... > I've recently worked on a control system that is at least 30 years old. I've met many people who are much more than 30 years old :) And I've worked in places where people retired only after ~40+ years. And replacements are relatively easy to find, depending on the nature of the work. I think there is a reasonable debate to be had about what should be automated and what should be kept in human hands. I think we as a civilization need to sort out what the costs and opportunities are in light of the failure modes of both alternatives.
- briandear 4y ago
  [flagged]
nottorp 4y ago
> unless you think working with a MS-DOS computer would be advisable today MS-DOS doesn't even have a networking stack by default, so it's air gapped out of the box. That in case you're worried about security. Other than that, if you can control some relays from an esp32 with 4k ram, why wouldn't you be able to do it from an 8088 box with 64?

donatj 4y ago

Honestly, even today I would trust a system running MS-DOS far further than anything running Windows. The number of gas pumps I’ve seen blue screened and kiosks running Windows Update… The only thing a more modern computer buys you is added complexity and more to go wrong. More RAM than your process needs? More to corrupt. What percentage of crud/resident processes on a “modern” is even related to the task we are assigning this machine? Less than 1%? It’s absurd. It’s like buying a Swiss Army knife with a million attachments to build a house. You can, but you shouldn’t.

pjmorris 4y ago

> Control systems often last decades, longer than most employees. ... > I've recently worked on a control system that is at least 30 years old. I've met many people who are much more than 30 years old :) And I've worked in places where people retired only after ~40+ years. And replacements are relatively easy to find, depending on the nature of the work. I think there is a reasonable debate to be had about what should be automated and what should be kept in human hands. I think we as a civilization need to sort out what the costs and opportunities are in light of the failure modes of both alternatives.

briandear 4y ago
[flagged]

nottorp 4y ago

> unless you think working with a MS-DOS computer would be advisable today MS-DOS doesn't even have a networking stack by default, so it's air gapped out of the box. That in case you're worried about security. Other than that, if you can control some relays from an esp32 with 4k ram, why wouldn't you be able to do it from an 8088 box with 64?