As technology marches on, some people get trapped using decades-old software and devices. Here's a look inside the strange, stubborn world of obsolete Windows machines.
At my old workplace, there was numerous XP machines still going. They were running old machine equipment, and basically served as a controller for the entire machine.
As it turns out, it was cheaper to keep these XP stations, instead of buying a completely new Hydrolic press, or whatever it was running, which cost several hundred of thousands of dollars.
One day one of these computers stopped working, and we immediately tried to get the software to work on a brand new W10 replacement. Took us a week of drivers hell, until we eventually went to the basement, found an exact replica, and swapped the HDD over.
The company, making these heavy machineries, went bankrupt in the early 2000s, and there was literally no way of getting the software to run on anything besides that original box.
I’d like a law that software / hardware companies who file for bankruptcies must release the source / files for their tech to an open source repository.
That idea often comes up in these discussions and I’ve never really had an argument against. Best I got is that parts of that software may have moved to more modern stuff that was purchased by another company. But that’s a damned thin excuse not to implement this.
There’s still things like that on my workplace today. I think there’s some older, rarely used CNC with Win98 on the controller. We just keep spares around when they break, but that’s cheaper than replacing the whole machinery. Also there’s some XP stations running software for an industrial machine which would cost quarter of a million to replace. Some of those need access to network drives and such but they live in a strictly isolated VLAN.
And, as far as I’ve told at least, there was no option at any point to upgrade just the computers on those things. It’s always the whole assembly line or whatever they’re connected to. There’s not many companies willing to throw hundreds of thousands every 3-5 years to replace perfectly working equipment.
Yup. Take backups, have spares, and keep it off the Internet and it’ll work just fine.
Pro tip, you can get IDE to CF adapters if you want to put an SSD in those old machines to really see them fly. Just be aware that they don’t have nearly as good write durability as a real SSD, so keep write heavy operations on the HDD.
Just a note: Windows software for controlling hardware is highly likely to assume a)direct access to the hardware (sometimes mediated thorough ancient APIs and assuming the existence of defunct expansion slots) and b) assume meatspace time can be counted using OS timing ticks (which get stretched out as modern VMs timeshare with other processes underneath the virtulized hardware). It is awfully tough to replace them sometimes.
Yeah, I suspect you gotta do something similar to what McLaren did when the special mid 90s computer they used for the F1 got too hard to replace as they broke, they built a new computer interface that was compatible with modern computers and allowed them to interface with the car
At my old workplace, there was numerous XP machines still going. They were running old machine equipment, and basically served as a controller for the entire machine.
As it turns out, it was cheaper to keep these XP stations, instead of buying a completely new Hydrolic press, or whatever it was running, which cost several hundred of thousands of dollars.
One day one of these computers stopped working, and we immediately tried to get the software to work on a brand new W10 replacement. Took us a week of drivers hell, until we eventually went to the basement, found an exact replica, and swapped the HDD over.
The company, making these heavy machineries, went bankrupt in the early 2000s, and there was literally no way of getting the software to run on anything besides that original box.
I’d like a law that software / hardware companies who file for bankruptcies must release the source / files for their tech to an open source repository.
That idea often comes up in these discussions and I’ve never really had an argument against. Best I got is that parts of that software may have moved to more modern stuff that was purchased by another company. But that’s a damned thin excuse not to implement this.
There’s still things like that on my workplace today. I think there’s some older, rarely used CNC with Win98 on the controller. We just keep spares around when they break, but that’s cheaper than replacing the whole machinery. Also there’s some XP stations running software for an industrial machine which would cost quarter of a million to replace. Some of those need access to network drives and such but they live in a strictly isolated VLAN.
And, as far as I’ve told at least, there was no option at any point to upgrade just the computers on those things. It’s always the whole assembly line or whatever they’re connected to. There’s not many companies willing to throw hundreds of thousands every 3-5 years to replace perfectly working equipment.
Me over here with a dirty mind 100% positive that I’m not using “CNC” the same way you are. I don’t know what your way means, but my way is more fun.
CNC—computer numerical control, where a computer makes the cutty/smushy/printy parts move through meatspace.
CNC—computer numerical control, where a computer makes the cutty/smushy/printy parts move through meatspace.
Yup. Take backups, have spares, and keep it off the Internet and it’ll work just fine.
Pro tip, you can get IDE to CF adapters if you want to put an SSD in those old machines to really see them fly. Just be aware that they don’t have nearly as good write durability as a real SSD, so keep write heavy operations on the HDD.
You can get industrial grade CF cards that use SLC memory. They have much better write endurance than normal CF cards.
I set up a 32 bit Windows 7 VM so my dad could keep using his old drawing program that was built for Windows 3.11.
It was the last version of Windows to support 3.11 compabillity.
Works well.
lol what drawing program?
Macrografx Designer 3.1:
https://winworldpc.com/product/micrografx-designer/31
Just a note: Windows software for controlling hardware is highly likely to assume a)direct access to the hardware (sometimes mediated thorough ancient APIs and assuming the existence of defunct expansion slots) and b) assume meatspace time can be counted using OS timing ticks (which get stretched out as modern VMs timeshare with other processes underneath the virtulized hardware). It is awfully tough to replace them sometimes.
Yeah, I suspect you gotta do something similar to what McLaren did when the special mid 90s computer they used for the F1 got too hard to replace as they broke, they built a new computer interface that was compatible with modern computers and allowed them to interface with the car
There are third parties that create new software for old industrial machines for this exact reason.
Yeah, and as long as these things never touch the internet, there really isn’t an issue.