OT: what's the oldest software you use often?

[BigEd]

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.)

[BillG]

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.

[hoglet]

BigEd wrote:

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

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

Dave

[drogon]

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

[commodorejohn]

vi, if vim counts.

[BigEd]

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

[drogon]

BigEd wrote:

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

[GARTHWILSON]

BigEd wrote:

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

on 6502 platform: Forth. I have it in ROM on the workbench computer, and all the applications I run on the workbench computer are under this Forth. Forth programs are compiled by it every time they're loaded, and assembly language is assembled by the onboard assembler in the Forth environment. The assembly language done there however is for ISRs, Forth primitives, runtimes, and testing subroutines, not whole applications done in assembly language.

Other: I keep a separate DOS machine with DOS 6.22 as a host for the workbench computer, and for running my EPROM programmer, and for the C32 assembler. Unfortunately the older machines with COM and LPT ports and ISA bus (for my Needham's EPROM programmer) are dying, one every so many years, so I'm having to find ways to replace the functions with my newer Linux machine. I recently bought the USB-interfaced EPROM programmer from Jameco but have not used it yet, and got a PCI-e board to plug in to give the COM and LPT ports, but the software that came with it won't install. DOSbox did just give me a wonderful update though.  [Edit: It's DOSBox-X, a fork of DOSBox.] The main problem before was that it wouldn't give me the higher screen resolutions I was getting with the Trident 8900 video card on the DOS machine; but they just came through. I recently took this screenshot as an example of what I can now see with it:

(This was for a PIC project, not 65xx.) I thought I was going to have to buy and learn a new editor, UltraEdit since MultiEdit is not available for Linux, but now I don't have to.

I had also been using the DOS machine for my DOS-based CAD until a few years ago when I transferred it to DOSbox on this Linux machine. I still use it (Easy PC Professional). I quit taking updates for it in about 1995 because they were adding features that weren't of any value to me, and making the older ones harder to access and use. If I were to show screenshots of when I'm laying out a multilayer board, you'd be appalled at how primitive it looks; but its name is very appropriate, and for example it just takes a jiffy to make up a new PCB component, unlike the situation with apparently a lot of modern CADs. It's very flexible, and with a little ingenuity and understanding of the gerber RS-274X standard, I've been doing a lot of things with it that most users of very modern CADs don't know how to do with them.

I use my HP-41cx calculator/computer pretty much every day. I bought it in 1986, and have had some of the programs I use most on it continuously for probably 30 years, never having to re-load. How's that for stability. They could probably be made more efficient now though, using functions in some new modules I have that have come out for it in recent years.

[BillO]

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.

[jds]

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.

[plasmo]

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

[65LUN02]

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.

[speculatrix]

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.

[BigEd]

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.

[jds]

plasmo wrote:

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 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.