Just a quiz but would be interesting to hear people's stories.

Let's say we're talking about software you run at least a couple of times a year.

And let's have two categories: software that you run on a 6502 platform (physical or emulated), and software that you run on a more modern platform (ARM, x86, 68000, powerpc, sparc, etc.)

I'll kick off with 1981 BBC Basic for Acorn's Beeb.

But I'm struggling to think of anything old that I run on a modern platform... it would probably have to be Xilinx Webpack - the oldest one I have is from 2005 but I don't run that one. Or, I have a linux box still running a 2010 kernel. That's really not very old! (Edit: lib6502 dates from 2008 but again I run a newer version.)

OK, I'll play...

* Borland Pascal/Turbo Pascal version 7 both for development and as an editor, early '90s.
* Borland Turbo Assembler version 3.2 from early '90s.
* Borland C++, version 3.1, early '90s.
* List version 6.0f, file viewing shareware from 1986.
* SuperC, file comparison program from IBM Personally Developed Software series, 1985.
* WordStar, version 3.3, early '80s. It still does obscure useful things.
* Once in a long while, I still use Word or PowerPoint from Office 2000 with some old files.

I see DOS software as the best "run anywhere" solution due to DOSBox and DOSBox-X.

Edit:

* Locate, a program I wrote in the mid '80s similar to grep, but faster and only for constant strings (no regexp.) I need to go back and retrofit something like Boyer-Moore for even more speed.
* Pkzip, version 2.04g, early '90s.
* Symdeb, version 4.00, 1985.
* Borland Turbo Debugger, version 3.2. Early '90s.
* Microsoft Visual C++, Version 6.0, late '90s.
* And how could I forget
* FLEX, 6800 and 6809, late '70s and early '80s.
* CP/M version 2.2, mid '70s.

In that vein, the oldest software I run regularly is Acorn's Atom BASIC (and MOS), which I think dates from early 1980.

Dave

Applesoft and Apple Integer BASIC when I have a bout of nostalgia about my old Apple II's. BBC Basic on the Beebs, of-course, and my Ruby boards.

BCPL on my Ruby'816 boards? Originated in 1966, but I am running a relatively new version of MRs compiler.

These are more for fun than anything 'work' related though...

It would be easy to also include things like Unix/Linux - although the Linux I use daily today isn't quite the Linux I first used back in the early 90's. (Same for the utilities like a web browser, GIMP and so on)

Ah-ha: TeX, specifically LaTeX. I use this every other day - I first used TeX back in the late 80's on Sun3 computers - has it changed since then? Well, not really.

Also the *roff layout programs - the 'man' program hasn't changed much since the late 80's - it's a front-end for troff (or groff) with the manual macro package.

(And as an aside, I wrote a version of the whole man suite for a 'new' Unix system in the late 80's too - write man, need 'troff', need 'more' which needs termcap, etc ...)

-Gordon

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Gordon Henderson.
See my Ruby 6502 and 65816 SBC projects here: https://projects.drogon.net/ruby/

vi, if vim counts.

Haha, I was really going for old software in the sense of old binaries - not software with a venerable history.

Once upon a time I wrote a MUD (Multi User Dungeon) It ran for some 20 years - 1992-2012. It initially ran on a Sun 3 under SonOS but I moved it to x86 and Linux round about 1996 or 97. That binary then ran on Linux systems for many years unchanged. What finally killed it was a change to GCC's C-Lib. (And now there are other issues as almost all Linux is 64-bit) Also, when I came to re-compile it, I remembered it was old K&R C not ANSI C which has issues of it's own. I may resurrect it one day...

So binary wise, I doubt anything older than the last major LibC change will still run on Linux, but who knows.

Other systems - well the old 8-bitters are still going strong - no changes there... My slide-rule still works, as does my 1975 Imperial 99T calculator and Casio FX502 Calculator (bought in 1980)

I do have an old S100/Z80 system - Northstar Horizon - runs CP/M and Northstar DOS but it's not something I regularly use... (the RC2014 folks may be a better target in the CP/M world in that respect though!)

-Gordon

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--
Gordon Henderson.
See my Ruby 6502 and 65816 SBC projects here: https://projects.drogon.net/ruby/

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http://WilsonMinesCo.com/ lots of 6502 resources
The "second front page" is http://wilsonminesco.com/links.html .
What's an additional VIA among friends, anyhow?

SYM-1 monitor - circa 1976.
OSI 6502 BASIC - circa 1977.

Does a BASIC program I wrote in 1973 in WANG BASIC and later ported to MS BASIC count?

Some of the stuff I run on CP/M might be older but I've never checked.

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Bill

I'm using Rockwell Forth as a kind of operating system for my current board. The disk functions work but the format is not at all standard today (256 byte sectors) and predates the standardization on the IBM formats. Otherwise it is working well. The manual for version 1.7 says 1983, so it must be older than that, but I'm not sure how old.

I still use Quelo 68000 assembler/linker/library package; they are dated 1986.
My schematic and PCB layout tools are WinDraft and WinBoard; they are dated 1998. The layout tools can only run on an old laptop running Windows ME, circa 2000.
Bill

I wonder how many lines of original code still exist in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint?

Given how software tends to last next to forever, I wouldn't be surprised if some part of each of those programs has survived rewrites, refactors, and "improvements" for decades.

If by "use" we include behaviors as well as code, then we can date a lot of the common functions in Excel back to Visicalc. Lotus 123 copied most of Visicalc's user experience and then Excel copied Lotus.

Similarly, I use "ls", "rm", "more", "cat", etc. on the command line on my Mac, and some of that code probably survived from the mid-1970s Bell Labs.

But in terms of whole compiled apps, I'm back to playing with Apple ][s, so like others I'm using both BASICs, "catalog", and parts of the monitor date back to the original Apple I to 1976.

WinCUPL, sadly.

Also, if a couple of times a year counts, I probably fire up Wordstar 4 and Wordperfect 5 (under DosBox) that often to access old, archived files.

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I like it when things smoke.
Blog – Zolatron 64 project

For some reason I rather thought CUPL might be in the responses!

I do fire up a DOS emulator from time to time but I have no regular use pattern - it's just when I stumble across some curious program.

I have an XP system standing by but it doesn't get powered up even annually so it fails the regular use test.

I made my first PCB with these tools, and purchased a license at the time. I remember I had to make a PLCC footprint myself and got the pin ordering wrong on one side, but apart from that the board worked well. Mostly pre-internet so a lot harder back then.