Subject: Oldest computer still in current use

From: chris <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu May 8 23:57:22 2003

On another list I am on, we were discussing why DOS is still used today 
(basic answer, because its working just fine, so why upgrade).

The following questions were posed that I don't know the answer to, but 
someone here might.

1: What is the oldest computer or comptuer system still in normal 
operational use

2: What is the oldest that is connected to the internet

3: What is the oldest connected to the internet AND hosting web pages 
that can be visited (I know of an Atari that is acting as a web server, 
don't remember the URL, but it shouldn't be tough to find... didn't know 
if there was something older)

Figured this is the right place to get these questions answered.

---

From: "UnRooster" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat May 10 14:10:11 2003

What about Commodore 64?

http://dunkels.com/adam/tfe/index.html

---

From: Barry Skidmore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat May 10 14:37:02 2003

Even better, how about the Digital PDP-11.

-- 
Barry Skidmore           | Hobbyist Systems:  
[email-masked]  | C64/128
Red Hat Linux 8.0        | MicroVAX 3100-40, OpenVMS
Postfix 1.1.11           | Mac SE/30's
--

---

From: "Stan Sieler" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun May 11 19:51:59 2003

> 1: What is the oldest computer or comptuer system still in normal 

Someone/group just ran a contest to find out the answer to that last year.
I don't recall who/what won, nor if I was "happy" with the result :)

A friend has an IMSAI 8080 that he still uses to burn PROMs ... that's the
oldest one I know of.

If you want mainframes, one of our clients has an HP 3000/70 (dating back
to about 1983) still in continual daily use ... not sporadic.

-- 
Stan Sieler
[email-masked]
www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html

---

From: "R. D. Davis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun May 11 19:53:50 2003

> What about Commodore 64?

Hardly.  That's one of those newfangled little computers of relatively
recent vintage.  It doesn't seem all that long since my C-64 was
brand spanking new.  Does that mean that I'm getting old? ;-)

-- 
Copyright (C) 2003 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals: 
All Rights Reserved            an unnatural belief that we're above Nature & 
[email-masked]  410-744-4900  her other creatures, using dogma to justify such
http://www.rddavis.org         beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.

---

From: "TeoZ" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun May 11 19:54:14 2003

The oldest computer still in use has to be a government non military server
somewhere. The military gets too much cash not to swap their equipment out
every decade at the latest so I rule them out. Other branches only upgrade
after every user who knows how to run the system is dead/retired. Probably
some computer setup for the social security database, or liscense plate
server or other mundane task.

Besides im shure there are tons of Sinclair's running chemical plant
controllers in the Ukraine somewhere that are at least older then the C64.

What about the computer sent out in the Voyager spacecraft in the 70's? Or
is this just personal computers?

---

From: "Zane H. Healy" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun May 11 19:54:23 2003

>Even better, how about the Digital PDP-11.

Doesn't someone have a PDP-8/e hooked up to the Internet in such a manner that visitors to his site can run stuff on it?

> > >1: What is the oldest computer or comptuer system still in normal

Define what you mean by "Oldest Computer or Computer System".  That can figure heavily into the correct answer.  After all, systems that you might not consider still under production, such as the PDP-10 or PDP-11 are to at least a certain extent (and I don't mean emulation).  Also, if emulation counts, that might skew the answer as well.  Remember emulation has been used for production systems for a *LONG* time.

There are still PDP-8's, PDP-10's and PDP-11's in daily use.  I'm sure there are at least a couple older ones out there.  Just look for industrial and scientific applications.

> > >2: What is the oldest that is connected to the internet

Well, various platforms that were connected to Arpanet are still being used.

>> >if there was something older)

I'm aware of systems running TOPS-20 and RT-11 serving web pages.

			Zane

-- 
--
| Zane H. Healy                    | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| [email-masked] (primary)    | OpenVMS Enthusiast         |
|                                  | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
|     Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing,    |
|          PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum.         |
|                http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/               |

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun May 11 19:54:55 2003

On Sat, 10 May 2003, TeoZ wrote:

> The oldest computer still in use has to be a government non military
> server somewhere. The military gets too much cash not to swap their
> equipment out every decade at the latest so I rule them out. Other
> branches only upgrade after every user who knows how to run the system
> is dead/retired. Probably some computer setup for the social security
> database, or liscense plate server or other mundane task.
>
> What about the computer sent out in the Voyager spacecraft in the 70's?
> Or is this just personal computers?

IBM East Fishkill still very much has Series/1's in full operation.  I
think there's also an S/360/30 doing something.

Peace...  Sridhar

---

From: VaxCat <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun May 11 19:56:51 2003

The whole oldest computer on the net thread reminded me of a story
a friend told me.

THE AMAZING VANISHING NOVELL SERVER

He was called in to perform some maintenance on a Novell server.

All the workstations in the office had various partitions of it
mounted and they'd been using it for years.

So Gary, my friend, goes to sit at the console.  "Where is it?",
he asks the baffled staff.

"Uh...we don't know."

Unbelieving, he seeks to verify that nobody in the company actually
knows where the server is.  Apparently, they'd hired a firm that had 
since gone out of business to install and maintain it.  Nobody else 
ever touched it.

So Gary goes into the telephone room where all the ethernet terminates
and the server would logically be.  This is old 10base2 coax.  But when
he looks where the coax should terminate, it doesn't.  It continues
THROUGH the wall, down in a tight little hole in the corner.

So, he thinks, it must be in the room on the other side.  Ah ha!  He
goes to the other side...no cable, no server.  So, scratching his head,
he goes into the adjacent rooms.  Same story.

He goes back in to the telephone room, sees the cable go under the
wall and then it occurs to him.  Something about the distances doesn't
add up.  He paces off the distance between the wall on the telephone
room side and the wall on the other side and finds that four feet is
missing.  Finding no niches in the adjacent rooms he asks why this
might be.

"We did some construction a couple years ago to change around some of 
the offices."

The upshot is that the builders had walled the server into a little 4 
foot room with no doors and nobody had noticed for TWO YEARS.

Says something about the reliability of Novell servers, I suppose.

Anthony Clifton
Des Moines, Iowa

---

From: VaxCat <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun May 11 19:57:02 2003

Greetings,

I'm looking for a couple surplus commodore serial cables (the ones 
with the round din connectors on either end) that I can buy for a 
reasonable price.

If anyone has them, please email me with price.

I need 2 to 4 of them and will, of course, pay shipping.

(Of course, I could build them but my homemade cables never seem to work
as well as the factory made ones.  =-)

Thanks.

Anthony Clifton
Des Moines, Iowa

---

From: "TeoZ" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun May 11 19:57:08 2003

That or the hardware the server was running on. Would hate to see the
cobwebs and dust buildup over a few years in a place like that.

---

From: JP Hindin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun May 11 19:58:47 2003

> THE AMAZING VANISHING NOVELL SERVER
I've seen this before; I wonder about its authenticity - but there's no
reason to jump to any conclusions...

On the prowl for computers at home (Wellington, New Zealand) I had greased
my way into a tour around a storage room of a banking centre. I was
greatly excited to discover a frightfully large IBM (if memory serves, an
S/390) with its face turned to the wall. On enquiry of possibility of my
relieving them of this waste of storage space the chap told me that he
wasn't sure why I'd want a water heater.

Unfortunately, after explaining to the fellow why it was most definately
not a water heater, the chances of picking it up become very remote.
They never explained to me why they'd put the machine in storage either :/

JP

---

From: Vintage Computer Festival <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri May 16 10:18:01 2003

> I don't recall who/what won, nor if I was "happy" with the result :)

It was, I believe, Network Magazine, and the winner was an Altair 8800
that some
business man used to do his books.

Here's another contest I found whilst searching...it's from the U of Iowa:

http://www.uiowa.edu/~fyi/issues1999/06111999/computer.html

According to this:

http://www.cronaca.com/archives/000154.html

...Australia's CSIRAC is still in operation.  But this would suggest
otherwise:

http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/csirac/

-- 

Sellam Ismail                                        Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger                http://www.vintage.org

 * Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri May 16 10:18:19 2003

On Fri, 9 May 2003, Stan Sieler wrote:

> Someone/group just ran a contest to find out the answer to that last
> year. I don't recall who/what won, nor if I was "happy" with the result
> :)
>
> A friend has an IMSAI 8080 that he still uses to burn PROMs ... that's
> the oldest one I know of.
>
> If you want mainframes, one of our clients has an HP 3000/70 (dating
> back to about 1983) still in continual daily use ... not sporadic.

I've personally seen with my own eyes an IBM S/360/30 still operating in
an industrial setting.

Peace...  Sridhar

---

From: John Boffemmyer IV <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri May 16 10:18:32 2003

Yes, oddly enough, it at one point was sitting in the power parallel dept 
running calculations for various things while the deep blue was being 
built. I remember my father's manager complaining about IBM insisting that 
their subcontractor department had to use it and were not allowed to 
replace it. The just put in for a replacement of a "failed server" that sat 
there running fine and IBM plopped in another $150k server next to it 
without realizing it. Though, the S/360/30 was still used. Nowadays, from 
what I last heard from a guy at IBM Poughkeepsie, NY, the S/360/30 in 
question is being used to process and develop information on some of IBM's 
older but still used machines (such as software/firmware development and 
revisions, etc.). I've also heard htat a similar unit was being used by KLA 
Temcor (sp?) in robotics development and control. They seem to like coming 
to my company's shop and picking up serial and SCSI cabling for the robotic 
units to interface them with the controlling machines while they are being 
developed. Cheaper than continuously banging out proto-boards every time 
you'd like to make a change to the function or design or when you need to 
make a revision.
-John

>think there's also an S/360/30 doing something.

----------------------------------------
Founder, Lead Writer, Tech Analyst
and Web Designer Boff-Net Technologies
http://boff-net.dhs.org/index.html
---------------------------------------

---

From: "Geoffrey G. Rochat" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri May 16 10:18:38 2003

> IBM East Fishkill still very much has Series/1's in full operation.

Having programmed IBM Series/1 computers for Citibank for many years in my
youth, I find the concept of "full operation" as applied to the Series/1
quite foreign and peculiar.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri May 16 10:18:57 2003

On Mon, 12 May 2003, Geoffrey G. Rochat wrote:

> Having programmed IBM Series/1 computers for Citibank for many years in
> my youth, I find the concept of "full operation" as applied to the
> Series/1 quite foreign and peculiar.

They're doing motion control in an automated industrial setting.

Peace...  Sridhar

---

From: [email-masked] (Tony Duell)
Date: Fri May 16 10:22:07 2003

> A friend has an IMSAI 8080 that he still uses to burn PROMs ... that's the

It's nowhwere near the oldest computer still in use (since it's based on 
a microprocessor), but when I need to program 1702s, I have to use my 
Intellec MCS8i, since that's the only machine I have with a suitable 
programmer. And that machine is older than an Imsai.

-tony

---

From: William Donzelli <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun May 18 02:14:55 2003

> I've personally seen with my own eyes an IBM S/360/30 still operating in

For what it is worth, the Taiwanese Navy still uses circa-1944 Mk 4 TDCs 
(Torpedo Data Computers) every day on their two ancient boats. Yes, 
analog, not digital.

William Donzelli
[email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun May 18 02:15:06 2003

That's not what I'm talking about.  This machine is running statistics for
badgereaders.  I believe PowerParallel operations ended in the northeast
when they closed the Kingston plant.

Peace...  Sridhar

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun May 18 02:15:17 2003

I was wrong.  All SP operations except for final testing and QA ended in
the northeast when Kingston closed.

Peace...  Sridhar