What's the oldest piece of software that you still use?

[HalationEffect]

Yeah, you'd be hard pressed to beat vi, unless there's anyone here who uses dc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dc_%28computer_program%29

[sithlord48]

does vi count? its not the same code exact from the 70's version its been updated in its 30 years of life.

[GreyGeek]

Bash

[SteveRiley]

Bash

Jerry is now speaking in shorthand. Allow me to translate.

Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed!

[Teunis]

No worries, history tells me in the long run evil is it's own worst enemy

[GreyGeek]

Jerry is now speaking in shorthand. Allow me to translate.

Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! Microsoft is evil and must be destroyed! .....

Ah, I see you got your hands on one of my secret decoder rings!

[perspectoff]

New! The 1971 Floppy Diskette

Saw a guy on the bus (!) yesterday wearing this T-shirt. I want one!

Introducing the Floppy Diskette:
*Nearly Limitless 80 kilobytes of Storage
*State-of-The-Art Cardboard Enclosure
*Iron Oxide Coating
*Read-Only Storage
*Only Eight Inches!
Never Use a Punchcard Again!

Punch cards... heh heh. I remember filling in circles on cards with a pencil! I was about 5 or 6 years old then, I think. Child labour laws hadn't yet been introduced for the computing industry.

Wait a minute...!
I think there still aren't any (hence the Google Summer of Code) !

Graphic: http://sale.images.woot.com/1971-Flo...e2wwDetail.png

Shirt: http://shirt.woot.com/offers/1971-floppy-diskette

[woodsmoke]

perspectoff:

lol GREAT POST!!!

When I was in the USN I was privileged to be the "interface" person between my ship, a post WWII ashcan and DESRON/PACFLT/ ...... I took the ROPEVAL data to SanDiego....to what was the first time.... NUC....Naval Undersea Center....the second time .............

N.U.R.D.S........Naval Undersea Research (and) Develoopment Systems....

Really....acronomyze...SAY TO YOURSELF......NURDS.....

It lasted about a week, cost somewhere north of ten thousand dollars....

but...yes......

I had the data...
gave it to the "punch card" "input personell".....women secretaries...

who had "the job of the future".....

and they put my data onto punch cards...

and I then watched a U.S. Navy Admiral......

on a stage.....with...in the SIXTIES.....

him being projected twenty feet tall

and pointing

in the sixties.... to a "green screen"...

and we saw...in "post" real time....

every ship, submarine, airplane and helicopter.....on the screen with him pointing them out...

and the United States Submarines.....]

"playing the role" of Russian Submarines....

And....

I knew then.....

that "things have changed".

....lol...punch card readers! lol

woodgratefulfiftyyearslatersmoke

[Guest]

Crossword Magic is the oldest software for me.

[perspectoff]

When I was in the USN I was privileged to be the "interface" person between my ship, a post WWII ashcan and DESRON/PACFLT/ ...... I took the ROPEVAL data to SanDiego....to what was the first time.... NUC....Naval Undersea Center....the second time .............

N.U.R.D.S........Naval Undersea Research (and) Develoopment Systems....

Really....acronomyze...SAY TO YOURSELF......NURDS.....

Small world. I programmed test software for nuclear submarines for NOSC in Pt. Loma for a few years... Long time after punch cards, though :-) Just went back to visit a few weeks ago...

Did you know the data for global warming (originally collected in order to study El Nino) was collated from navy buoys in the South Pacific by a datacenter at NOSC in Pt. Loma as well?

I think those guys used to have a deck of poker cards made out of old punch cards... (Hmmm. That gives me an idea for a novelty item for IT geeks!)

I remember the Dolphin center there, too. They were training the Dolphins to tap on submarine hulls in morse code as an alternative, highly-stealthy means of communication for periods of "running silent." Homing dolphins, as it were. Of course, the dolphins that volunteered were monitored by the NSA for years afterwards, due to the sensitive nature of their messages... (JK)

[Teunis]

Talking punch cards, pretty sure there are still boxes full to be found, with- or without hanging chads
Getting a reader hooked up to a modern system is probably a challenge so I could imagine an optical scanner with some OCR-style software would be easier.

[Simon]

Oh this is real tough one for me. I have so many. I am a bargain bin software hunter. On weekends, I do everything from yard sales to going to the game shops and Devonshire Mall. I guess my oldest software that I use is a puzzle game called "The 7th Guest" says 1993 on the jacket. I have to use Dosbox just to run it. I think "Toonstruck" would be the second oldest but it is not currently installed. I have a large cardboard box in my wardrobe. I keep old software from the 1990's in there, but haven't got them all to config to my Dosbox just yet.

[Achaean]

I'm not sure, but I think the oldest for me (running in dosbox), is Mr. Gibson's Monopoly. 1987.
Description here.


I think it was shareware and I got it from a magazine's floppy.