Old software still useful today?

[pacman000]

I have all the original software still loaded on my 486 restoration project (which is waiting on parts and 90% done).. I just put a network card in it. Can't wait to get it on the net. There's gotta be some sites that work with Netscape/Mosaic/IE1.

Shameless self-promotion: https://websitering.neocities.org/I've been listing older websites for a bit over a year now, about 1 per day. Some of them should work.

[NE146]

[Nebulon]

- Notepad

- irfanView

- An old version of WinAmp (with the Geiss visualization plugin)

- A DOS utility for saving and loading instruments for my Korg M1 synthesizer.

- An old version of DirOpus for Windows

- SoundBlaster Live! with the original drivers.

- Painter Classic

- MS GIF Animator (from around 2001?)

- CoolEdit96

- A DOS utility called Frag

- An old-skool version of BASIC for the PC called BLASSIC.

 

And I'd actually still use Photoshop 3.0 if only it didn't freak out as soon as the PC's RAM is expanded to 1GB.

 

Just for fun, I managed to get AutoCAD's 1988 competitor CADKey running on a Pentium II machine.

[thetick1]

Are you saying if you block smb ports at the router/firewall you're still vulnerable to wanna cry?

 

If you disable smb you can still transfer files to old computers by ftp.

 

Sure you just need to spoof the samba port that the firewall sees. This is sometimes not too difficult if you have old outdated firewall with ancient firmware but generally not possible with modern update to firewall.

 

Well also your firewall could be compromised. There are many very bad firewall back doors in older firewalls or even newer ones with old firmware. Most people do not upgrade the firmware on their hardware firewall. I would say if you have a fairly modern firewall with latest firmware and you block smb you are much better but certainly ideal. I will just comment the firewall I had a default backdoor password that would allow anyone with credentials full root access to the firewall. It existed for years until the issue was publicly announced and firmware released fixed it.

 

Running an ftp server is never a good idea anywhere or for any reason. You should use sftp.

 

The biggest problem is almost never a single security issue , but an odd ball combination of them each allowing slightly more capabilities.

Edited May 1, 2018 by thetick1

[+OLD CS1]

- An old version of DirOpus for Windows

- MS GIF Animator (from around 2001?)

 

 

DirectoryOpus FTW, and that old MS GIF Animator is quite powerful, though these days I find myself using ffmpeg to create animated GIFs from video files.

 

 

The biggest problem is almost never a single security issue , but an odd ball combination of them each allowing slightly more capabilities.

 

This is really the trick. An old insecure JavaScript engine can own your network with rogue DHCP/DNS services, banging on routers with known vulnerabilities or default admin credentials, etc. There are many more outlandish scenarios which actually find practice.

[pacman000]

"Running an ftp server is never a good idea anywhere or for any reason. You should use sftp."

 

Providing a download center for old software is bad?

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/278283-ftp-asimov-off-the-grid/?do=findComment&comment=4018036

[troff]

-

Just for fun, I managed to get AutoCAD's 1988 competitor CADKey running on a Pentium II machine.

 

Wow, I had forgotten about CADKey, I used to use that!!

[Eltigro]

Don't know how well it fits with the topic, but I know there are places like auto parts stores that still run some pretty old software for their inventory and parts ordering and such. Lowe's has some that looks like it was made in the 80's or so. No graphics. The Lowe's logo is made out of characters and such. Of course these are all custom software probably or some modified inventory software or whatever. But the thing is, it works, so they've kept with it.

[Flojomojo]

Click here to make this page look like a GeoCities page set up by a 13 year old in 1995.

[Eltigro]

That does bring back some memories. Not saying whether they are good or bad memories, though.

[troff]

That's awesome!

[thetick1]

Don't know how well it fits with the topic, but I know there are places like auto parts stores that still run some pretty old software for their inventory and parts ordering and such. Lowe's has some that looks like it was made in the 80's or so. No graphics. The Lowe's logo is made out of characters and such. Of course these are all custom software probably or some modified inventory software or whatever. But the thing is, it works, so they've kept with it.

 

It could be a very modern powerful mini computer in the case of large retailer like Lowe's. A small auto shop very likely has ancient mini computer hardware. See iSeries/Power Series . People see green screen and think it's old. It certainly could be very old hardware but more likely at a large retailer very old STABLE software running on modern hardware. These mini computers latest (POWER 9 based up to 5Ghz) can still run unmodified inventory software written in late 80's originally from their predecessor machines. Business machine software was designed to always be 100% no exceptions upward and backwards compatible. The base software technology is an OS originally written in 80's that uses bytecode (similar to java jvm) to execute code from the old environments. IBM calls their implementation of byte code TIMI for "Technology Independent Machine Interface".

Edited May 4, 2018 by thetick1

[+OLD CS1]

 

It could be a very modern powerful mini computer in the case of large retailer like Lowe's. A small auto shop very likely has ancient mini computer hardware. See iSeries/Power Series . People see green screen and think it's old. It certainly could be very old hardware but more likely at a large retailer very old STABLE software running on modern hardware. These mini computers latest (POWER 9 based up to 5Ghz) can still run unmodified inventory software written in late 80's originally from their predecessor machines. Business machine software was designed to always be 100% no exceptions upward and backwards compatible. The base software technology is an OS originally written in 80's that uses bytecode (similar to java jvm) to execute code from the old environments. IBM calls their implementation of byte code TIMI for "Technology Independent Machine Interface".

 

I think most of those Lowes terminals are just small computers running VT software to connect to a "main frame" Unix-alike machine on the back-end. My guess is some emulation of an AS or RS on an AIX machine running some ancient software.

 

I will take a closer look next time I am around.

[thetick1]

 

I think most of those Lowes terminals are just small computers running VT software to connect to a "main frame" Unix-alike machine on the back-end. My guess is some emulation of an AS or RS on an AIX machine running some ancient software.

 

I will take a closer look next time I am around.

 

I'm pretty sure it is running a version on IBM i --- OS/400 or i5/OS or IBM i... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_i . It's definitely not AIX and I'm petty sure Lowe's would not be running a S/390. Seriously they could not afford it.

Edited May 5, 2018 by thetick1

[+OLD CS1]

 

I'm pretty sure it is running a version on IBM i --- OS/400 or i5/OS or IBM i... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_i . It's definitely not AIX and I'm petty sure Lowe's would not be running a S/390. Seriously they could not afford it.

 

Very cool. I was not familiar with this side of the IBM world. I was of the understanding all of the emulation of older machines/OSes were in VMs on AIX. Very cool indeed.

[Mockduck]

Here's a story from a hair salon near my house:

 

About a year ago, I needed a haircut, and due to being busy and other reasons, I decided to support a hair salon (for men and women) located a block from my house. The person who runs it is an older lady who has been there for years, and while getting a haircut I noticed that she had a Commodore 64 STILL HOOKED UP to an old television set! I asked her about it, and she said she still uses it because it has a great program that she uses to make and match hair dyes for clients. At first I thought I thought to myself that it was insane, but thinking about it, if she's successfully used a program for 30ish years, it does exactly what she wants it to, and it continues to work fine, why not keep the Commodore hooked up?

[butterburp]

I still use Tandy Deskmate, or Notepad in Windows 3.1, when I really need to concentrate on catching up with email. I copy my messages to text files and open them up in one of those two programs (in Dosbox). It somehow tricks my mind into not alt-tabbing to Google Chrome to watch Youtube, check sports scores, visit Atari Age, etc.

Edited May 8, 2018 by butterburp

[+OLD CS1]

I still use Tandy Deskmate, or Notepad in Windows 3.1, when I really need to concentrate on catching up with email. I copy my messages to text files and open them up in one of those two programs (in Dosbox). It somehow tricks my mind into not alt-tabbing to Google Chrome to watch Youtube, check sports scores, visit Atari Age, etc.

 

Modern distractions is a productivity killer, for sure.

[zzip]

I use Notepad++ in Windows and good old vi on Linux or Unix but not when I do any complex scripting.

 

For scripting I still use a proprietary cursors X11 based UNIX text editor from 1990 that I used extensively back then. I also ported it to new OS releases over the years. Technically I probably should not use it as the source is still copyrighted by my old employer. Anyway I learned all the shortcuts, macro tricks, language highlighting decades ago. I tried to use a modern text editor for scripting but it was too painful. I have compiled it for modern Linux and also have an old Win32 port of it from '95 that works fine on Windows 7 and Windows 10. I'm still friends with the current maintainer and well I asked him to open source it. He just laughed and said too much legal work. He said just use it and don't distribute it.

 

Notepad++ is great, and a must have because the default options in Windows are lacking!

 

But vi-- I've used Unix and Linux for over 20 years now, but I have never developed a liking for vi. Sure I can make do if I need to, but it's dual-mode nature always trips me up. I much prefer editors like nano, jed and emacs

[+OLD CS1]

Whenever I work in a DOS environment I rather like StupenDOS.

 

[troff]

I still use Tandy Deskmate, or Notepad in Windows 3.1, when I really need to concentrate on catching up with email. I copy my messages to text files and open them up in one of those two programs (in Dosbox). It somehow tricks my mind into not alt-tabbing to Google Chrome to watch Youtube, check sports scores, visit Atari Age, etc.

 

I didn't use Deskmate back in the day, but was fascinated with it then, and never really scratched that itch. How do you use it in DOSBox - wasn't it in the Tandy's ROM? Is there an extracted image you can use?

[butterburp]

 

I didn't use Deskmate back in the day, but was fascinated with it then, and never really scratched that itch. How do you use it in DOSBox - wasn't it in the Tandy's ROM? Is there an extracted image you can use?

 

I think that might have been Deskmate version 1, which doesn't work on modern PC's (you can't save files). I use version 2 which you can get here:

http://www.oldskool.org/guides/tvdog/deskmate.html

 

and it's the files that start with "3kdm" (the big one is the manual).