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Earlier this month, I described a friend of mine who was responsible for a corporate network notable for its aging applications infrastructure. (See WI #322). At the end of the column I proposed a contest and asked you all to send in your own entries to qualify for the "oldest living software" application. Needless to say, I got some great entries. (And they keep coming in as a result of being on Slashdot.) After enlisting my VARBusiness colleague Scott Gormley as a co-judge, I can now announce the winners.
Before I do, I should point
out three Web sites that might be of interest to those of you that are
exploring the ancient era of our industry. Dell in fact held its own oldest
existing hardware contest a few years ago and uncovered a vintage Altair
from 1976 that was since donated to The Computer Museum.
Two other Web
sites are digibarn.com and
oldversions.com. The former is Bruce Damer's one-man computer museum, while the
latter maintains links to older versions of some common software tools that may
be preferred to the bloatware and feature-rich upgrades that have followed
them.
Okay, enough
scene-setting. The winner in my little contest is a general ledger accounting
program that has been in use for nearly 25 years and was originally written for
the Radio Shack TRS-80 in 1978 and was mass-marketed in 1979. I corresponded
with the developer, Irwin Taranto, and he told me
"In the years prior to IBM PC intro in September 1981, thousands of copies
were sold. We worked closely with Adam Osborne in those days. I was sad to hear
of his demise." I was contacted by one of his customers, Telford Cruikshank
Jr. the owner of Telfords Chevrolet in Clay WV. Cruikshank claimed he had the
1978 vintage, but Taranto pulled his file (how many of us still have business
records going back that far) and told me that he originally purchased the
software in February 1985 for the classic two-floppy IBM PC. The Chevy dealer
was looking to upgrade his Windows 95 machine to XP. I asked Taranto if he
still supports his software and he told me, "We stopped upgrading and
marketing right after the y2k upgrades. The major investment that would have
been required was not desirable for someone collecting Social Security. I don't
know how many actual users we have of the accounting software, not many I am
sure. But since the company telephone number is no longer in service, nor the
address, it takes some searching to find me. Nevertheless, we get an occasional
email from a user, mostly from a rural community, such as the email from
Telford Chevrolet. We also sold several turn-key point-of-sale accounting
systems in 1995 based on UNIX and two of these are still running." Irwin will be getting my check for $25,
to help supplement his SSI from the government next month.
But I had
so many other good entries I also want to share them with you. In second place
is this entry from Chuck Curtis. He writes "My office is still using Lotus
123R3 for DOS. I have it installed on about 150 laptops and PC's." For
those of you that aren't familiar with this product, it dates back to just
1991. Why is he still using this software? "The basic Lotus spreadsheet
file was designed by Health Care Financing Administration (now The Center for
Medicare Medicaid Services) for our medical facility inspectors to record the
time spent on various parts of the inspection, to include travel time. I have
to load this to each new laptop or PC that comes in. I have asked if it would be possible to convert the
spreadsheets to a new application such as Excel. However, this isn't possible,
as the mainframe that the files are uploaded to cannot accept any of the newer
applications spreadsheets, because of hidden characters and codes. Needless to
say, you have to remain very proficient at using the keyboard (forward slash,
arrow) vs. a mouse." Thanks to Chuck for this entry: I still own a copy of
the version 1A and remember how excited I was building those early spreadsheets
back in the 1980s. I liked this entry because of the number of clients running
it still, even though it is relatively recent compared to some of the other
nominations submitted. (I didn't say that I would judge strictly on the
vintage, now did I?)
In third
place is a version of data entry software called RODE/PC that was first
developed in 1984. Patrick Benson submitted these details: "We support a
DOS 2.0 version of RODE/PC and managed to run it on XP. It was initially deployed in 1985 and
the applications have not been substantially changed since then. The product is
used for heads down data entry, 82,000 transactions per month from one large
department and 4,000 per month from others. It works as well as any mature key-disk application should,
and we continue to use it because it works. In mid to large firms there tends
to be a need for central data entry of tables, budget spreads, journal vouchers
and sensitive transactions, and this app works well for that type of
work." I contacted the original developer Bill Ackerman and he sent me the
following note: "RODE/PC never really changed hands. A joint development
venture between DPX and a Swedish company, RODE/PC has always stayed with me as
we grew the company and evolved through several legal entities. The
development, marketing, and support has been with same individuals since
1984." Again, very impressive chain of custody for an application.
But the
PC-based products really can't hold a candle to their mainframe cousins, some
of which date back to the dawn of time. Here are a couple of entries that have
to do with mainframes that I liked:
Bob
Schaefer wrote that "We currently have some parts of our G/L system that
are from the mid 60's. These are part of the original package from McCormick
& Dodge that was purchased to run on an IBM 360 model 20. They have seen
changes over the years but the users will not let us get rid of them. We have
carried these programs through multiple computer hardware upgrades. Even when
we replaced the ERP systems (several times) we have to write conversion
programs to get the data "just so" to keep these monoliths
going." Schaefer's mainframe apps aren't the only aging part of his
computing network. He also has four or five desktops running DOS 3.1 to run a
terminal emulation program from ANDREW to drive printers that date back to the
early 1990s.
Shelley Giles
also sent in an entry for mainframe software that was already up and running
when he began working for his employer back in 1971. (How many of us can claim
that kind of tenure?) He writes: "The only documentation I know about is
about a tenth generation copy of handwritten notes that has existed since at
least Oct. 1971. The program, called DATAMOD, was acquired from a computer
company in Darmstadt, West Germany. This 'grep-like' program for scanning,
selecting, and reformatting data is used many times daily in the updating of
databases. The sale of information in these databases is a $100+ million
per year business. We still have one person who knows how to write control
statements for it, and it has not been necessary to write or modify any control
statements since approx. 1979."
Right up
there with the durability of mainframe applications is Novell applications. I
received several entries, all testifying to the longevity of Novell's Netware
and Groupwise product lines, and some cited examples even further back in time
than my friend quoted in my column.
Kevin Lee wrote in: "We are a small UK based company and although we produce the
very latest in PLC controlled switchgear and SCADA systems, our company still
uses two ancient file servers and server software (HP 486DX66 file server with
25 user versions of Novell Netware 3.2)."
One of the
entries was still using a GroupWise 4.1 Fax Gateway that was installed sometime
around 1993, and another has a doctor's office as a client what is running
Netware 4.1 for over six years. But these pale by comparison to a reader who
says he is "downright primordial with Netware 3.12. It will be retired
once and for all in the next couple of months when we finally replace the
DOS-based application that has been the lifeblood of our advertising
department." David Merrill, a computer specialist with the Oregon
Newspaper Publishers Association, writes "Just two months ago, we finally
retired the last Windows95 system on our network. We also have a Power
Macintosh (topped out at OS 7.5). As a non-profit trade association, we are
squeezing the most we can out of every technology dollar." Another
correspondent was also running Netware 3.12 and a DOS version of Great Plains
accounting software on a 15-node network too. My final Novell entry concerned
the original version of Groupwise that was running on a Data General
eight-processor Unix box. Lest you think Novell is getting all the
accolades, one reader sent me screenshots to prove that his Windows NT v4
server is still up and running of 1079 days with nary a reboot, and being used
to serve up IP addresses for about 3,500 client workstations. "The server
out lived the core switch it was originally plugged into, the rack it was
originally mounted in, and the KVM it was originally using. If all goes as
planned, it will be retired in November without having any down time and
replaced with a Windows 2000 machine."
Perhaps
the most amusing contrasting situations were these following entries. Mark Hall
wrote and told me about this: "My chiropractor is still using Medi-Soft on
his 286-10mhz with 512k ram and an old 40 MB drive, running DOS 5. He refuses
to spend the time to learn something new. His family members are using 1GHz+
running Win98 and the staff is running with the newest version of Medi-Soft,
Office, etc. But he won't change. Actually asked if I could upgrade him to a
486 with DOS 6.x!" Another correspondent told me about an Apple IIc
running a custom-made program designed to print out a set of behavioral test
questions for an HMO in California that was still in use in 1997 and dated back
the 1980s. Kinda scary, don't you agree?
Finally,
when it comes to loyalty, don't ever try to separate someone from his or her
Personal Information Manager (a software category that has gone out of vogue
these days. Paul Schindler is still running a ten-year old PIM called Ecco and
doesn't want to convert to something else for fear of losing any data. Steve
and Cynde Magidson still use Dayflo Tracker (c. 1983) to maintain their
database of southern California Rutgers alumni members. (Steve was one of the
architects of the software). Both of these are DOS-based programs.
What is
clear from this walk down memory lane is the enduring legacy of many computer
applications, and the noble effort of the many men and women that continue to
maintain this aging code base and rag-tag collection. It also is a testimonial
to the old adage, "if it still works, don't mess with it." Thanks one
and all for your contributions,