I use a Windows XP machine for work nearly every day. And yeah, it’s because it runs some of the most expensive equipment in the company.
Comment on Still booting after all these years: The people stuck using ancient Windows computers
jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
I would bet there are still a few old pieces of industrial machinery around that I duct taped together by imaging an ancient PC and transferring it to a Virtual Box VM.
mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Paradox@lemdro.id 2 days ago
BART wrote a PDP8 cross assembler in the late 90s, that they still use today.
Damage@feddit.it 2 days ago
I 4 years ago I remotely reinstalled Wonderware and necessary drivers on a Windows NT3.51 HMI controlling a mango line in Africa (I don’t remember exactly, maybe Burkina?). Not fun, there wasn’t much documentation left.
One year later I had to do it again.
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
There are many, many machines out there running 95 and even earlier versions. The issue is that a machine from 30 years ago is almost always still using the software that came with the machine… 30 years ago.
Even if the OS has received security patches, which isn’t even assured, the company may either no longer be in business, or charge for new OS drivers/specialized software.
In many cases, your options are literally to replace an entire machine worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, or deal with the networking nightmare that is “keep this on the network, but not on the network.”