Ask HN: What's the oldest piece of software still in use?

[jgrahamc]

I use a 13 year old copy of Quicken for bank account management. I'm interested in examples of software that are older than that and still being used.

I'm not interested in software that's been patched over the years, but code that's been unchanged for years and is still in active use. Are you using any DOS programs, for example?

[edw519]

I wrote the lot traceability module of Compufact's ERP package in 1987. 3 years ago, I engaged a company that still used that software. Just for fun, I searched for my initials in their repository. Good news: that software was still being used. Not so good news: one of my programs had been changed 120 times, including bug fixes. I pretended that it was written by another "edw".

[yaddayadda]

So over 26 years, there have been 120 edits? Including bug fixes? Which means not all 120 edits were bug fixes, presumably it included other things like feature enhancements? That's less than 5 changes a year on average for a 26 year old program. In my book, unless you're working on a life-or-death system or a space-bound system [1], less than 5 changes a year over 26 years is something to be proud of!

[1] And no one individual programmer should be solely responsible for life-or-death systems or space-bound systems.

[jonnathanson]

Let's define "still in use," because that's the heart of the question. Technically speaking, I'm sure someone could dig an Apple IIc out of storage somewhere and successfully run a game on it. Hell, someone out there might be doing that right now. To me, that anecdotal experience doesn't translate into "in use."

I'd define "in use" to mean still in productive service to a group of people or institutions significant enough to represent a niche market.

For that, I'd probably look to things like avionics software in certain airplanes, navigation systems on old ships, firmware in medical devices and diagnostics, or perhaps to inventory management systems in old warehouses.

And who knows what firmware we loaded onto our Cold War-era ICBMs, for that matter? Or what dusty, backwards-compatible systems we would need to maintain control over them? Would anyone like to play a game? :)

[tjr]

Similarly: I worked on some avionics networking software a few years back, written in C, and a surprisingly old version of GCC (I think from the late 1990's, in 2006-2007, so approximately a decade old then) was being used. That particular version had already been qualified for avionics development at the company, and to upgrade to a newer version would have meant assuming the cost of requalification.

Just so long as the old compiler worked well enough, they had no reason to upgrade. (I did uncover a bug in the compiler which I had to work around, but wasn't enough to warrant an upgrade.)

[Nursie]

Ask a mainframe shop. The back-compat date for mainframes, even just-off-the-line System Z boxes, is 1964.

--edit-- I also play Commodore 64 games in emulators, and they date from the 80s, but I suspect this is not the sort of answer you're looking for.

[mathgorges]

I'm doing an internship at a mainframe shop right now.

I took a look into it and the oldest macro I could find that I use semi regularly is SYS1.MACLIB(DCBD). A utility for working with data control blocks which dates back to 1977, putting it at 36 years old.

There are definitely older programs on the system, but I'm not sure how often they're used.

[kephra]

I wrote a set of Nagios plugins for z/Linux in 2008, to monitor a DOS/VS application, running under VM/370 running under VM/ESA, running in an LPAR next to the z/Linux.

I don't know how old the application is, but DOS/VS is from 1972, and depreciated since 1980 by DOS/VSE.

[Piskvorrr]

Prehistorik 2 (1993) even displays a notice on startup "wow, this game still runs in 2013", blisfully unaware that it's inside DosBox on an Android tablet.

So indeed, the oldest software will probably be running inside a VM.

[RBerenguel]

Titus the Fox also does this (1992 by the same developers IIRC)

[derefr]

The "running unpatched" part would make me bet on embedded software. Maybe some machine in a factory still usefully following a 50-year-old punch-card to "print out" patterned carpets, for example.

[davidw]

This seems relevant:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/249951/if_it_aint_broke_dont_...

[pbhjpbhj]

The article initially concerns a company that uses an IBM 402 - a punch card reading/writing accounting machine with plug-board programs - that has been in service over 50 years.

It covers PDP's and some home systems (eg Apple IIe) too.

[buro9]

WinAmp 2, which I believe is from 1998/1999.

I have a zip of the download, and just keep installing it and moving forward. I never quite made the jump to Winamp 3 and once I stopped moving forward every update to Winamp deterred me some more.

[JanezStupar]

Try Foobar2000.

[kotnik]

Canadian nuclear industry has committed to continue the use of PDP-11 until 2050. I guess they have some software there running from 70s. Here's a recent ad for PDP-11 assembly coders they're in dire need of:

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showthread.php?37827...

[gruseom]

That is simply incredible.

[TheBeardKing]

In military maintenance we use loads of software developed in the 70s on old test stations. These programs slowly get rehosted to newer testers, or until the systems under test go obsolete.

Where I work we have hundreds of engineers programming in Teradyne's LASAR software, rehosting old programs onto new digital test platforms. LASAR was developed in the mid 80s and we have it running on VAX and UNIX servers. Since electronics no longer use combinational logic in discrete chips, no newer software is available.

[matthudson]

I work in a biochemistry research laboratory at a large, well funded university. It's interesting to observe the software/hardware usage around the lab.

The boring majority of software in the lab is just the latest iteration of a 'Microsoft-whatever' suite stuffed into a standard enterprise Dell box.

It's the exceptions that are interesting.

For example, a few weeks ago the lab's last PC that ran Windows 95 died. That really sucked for a few people because a piece of proprietary software that ran an important microscope camera only ran on Windows 95. (Only ran on Win95 if you didn't want to pay big time for an upgrade to a modern OS.)

Intriguingly, a PI I am working with is planning on using his old Silicon Graphics machine very soon. He told me there are still certain features lacking in modern software that can be found on software written for some older SG machines.

Finally, we are in the process of restoring an old machine that is frequently used for pulling apart very thin pieces of glass for electrophysiology experiments. Granted, all the software inside is embedded. But the software and the hardware still exceed 13 years of age by a wide margin.

It's really neat to see older programs and hardware chugging along. And it's strangely reassuring to see that while encountering the latest Javascript framework debate on Hacker News.

[vtbose]

Do space probes count? http://history.nasa.gov/computers/Ch6-2.html

[noonespecial]

We use DOS programs within virtual machines to process data that comes in on 1/2" tape from government sources and return it to them on DVD's. The oldest of these would be mid 80's I guess.

Edit: Changed "in-virtuo" to "within virtual machines" for clarity.

[shubb]

The science lot usually call simulation 'In silico' in their papers. Personally, unnecessary latin makes me cringe.

[kephra]

PC-DOS or DOS/VS? (Intel or /360 architecture DOS)

[zarify]

I was doing some work for a friend of mine late last year and he was still running his DOS-based accounting software from 1987 I think. I can't remember the name of it though. He wouldn't abandon it, so now that he has a new computer he's running it in a VM, including a virtual parallel printer since it wouldn't recognise his new one.

I still tease him about it.

[jeremymcanally]

There is an accountant at a company I briefly worked for who still uses an Apple II and some archaic accounting software that he learned to do accounting on. He refuses to change, so they just have a big stack of Apple IIs in a closet to replace them when they wear out. That software probably hasn't been touched since 1980 at the latest.

[ewams]

Can we get a picture of that?

[jetsnoc]

I worked for a small rural telephone company who still operates a DMS100. One of my job duties as an on-call Unix system administrator was to perform a reel-to-reel tape backup on it. This DMS100 was installed in 1983 and the programs that operate on it must be much older than that. Still operates today.

[ambiate]

We are using Ingres Databases from the early 90s or late 80s. We have tens of billions of rows.

List of missing things: EVERYTHING. Primary/Foreign key relationships are buggy, therefore, not used. Views are somewhat available. Joins are buggy. Have to build all indices by hand choosing the relational columns and data structure/allocation. Cannot subtract sets without huge where clauses with very odd syntax. Rely mostly on WHERE EXISTS/NOT EXISTS or WHERE IN. Can only perform single column queries in a where clause, no WHERE (a, b) IN. Its free and it works. IT is a cost center. No new databases anytime in the near future.

[Peroni]

Does my copy of Asteroids for the Atari 2600 count? It's been locked up in storage in my mothers attic for about 15 years and the last time I was back home it still worked perfectly. I believe the game is close to 30 years old.

[ioquatix]

Compilers are pretty interesting- the current compiler was compiled by the previous compiler. Theoretically, our modern compilers embody ~40 years of history..

[anywherenotes]

I made a website that's by now obsolete for anyone but me, but I still use it. It went live in late 2002 and hasn't been patched since early/mid 2003. This year 1and1 (my host) disabled MYSQL 4, so I moved database to MYSQL 5, but did not change the code. I have grandiose hopes to update it to look current.

Although now that I look at it, they say my version of php will be phased out August 1'st :( And they are raising the price on August 1'st ...

[emhart]

Link to the site before time runs out? I love seeing "antique" websites.

[trin_]

just a heads-up for you. 1&1 will disable php4 too this year! ;)

[gabipurcaru]

Not that old, but I always found it interesting that we learned C/C++ in highschool using a version of Borland from 1993, which made the program as old as myself.