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I was in a candlepin bowling alley a couple of years ago and was chatting with the owners and when they found out I am a software dev they wanted to know if I c

I was in a candlepin bowling alley a couple of years ago and was chatting with the owners and when they found out I am a software dev they wanted to know if I could help them with their lane terminal software. The setup was rough: ms-dos, who knows what it was written in, a whole pc per lane (they had 20 towers running in the back room) and no remote administration -- the man who runs the software company makes some updates every year by jumping in his RV and working his way up the coast from maryland to maine, stopping to do maintenance at various bowling alleys. These people seemed desperate for any kind of help because the owner of this software company was retiring within the next couple of years and there was no plan for anyone to take over the relationships, of which it sounded like there were dozens. If I wasn't happily employed I would have very seriously looked into what it would have cost to buy that operation.

absurddoctor 4y ago
I think this may have surfaced on reddit recently, with a picture. https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/comments/10pciup/the_computer_systems_for_the_bowling_alley_i_work/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/comments/10pciup/the_comp...
- kubectl_h 4y ago
  Oh wow crazy. That's pretty much what their back room looked like.
kmbfjr 4y ago
I ran across a similar setup in the late 80’s as a student studying industrial process control and the point of the field trip was interfacing to very old analog processes. The bowling alley was an 80 lane 10 pin and they had 80 pcs chugging away. The software was written in Turbo Pascal.
VectorLock 4y ago
Every candlepin bowling alley that I've been to had hilarious MSDOS scoring machines with CRT screens (those that HAD scoring machines) and adorable primitive animation when you got a strike. Kind of part of the allure for me. Definitely implemented in Turbo Pascal.

absurddoctor 4y ago

I think this may have surfaced on reddit recently, with a picture. https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/comments/10pciup/the_computer_systems_for_the_bowling_alley_i_work/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/comments/10pciup/the_comp...

kubectl_h 4y ago
Oh wow crazy. That's pretty much what their back room looked like.

kmbfjr 4y ago

I ran across a similar setup in the late 80’s as a student studying industrial process control and the point of the field trip was interfacing to very old analog processes. The bowling alley was an 80 lane 10 pin and they had 80 pcs chugging away. The software was written in Turbo Pascal.

VectorLock 4y ago

Every candlepin bowling alley that I've been to had hilarious MSDOS scoring machines with CRT screens (those that HAD scoring machines) and adorable primitive animation when you got a strike. Kind of part of the allure for me. Definitely implemented in Turbo Pascal.