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If you want to find all the oldest computer in government, then you might as well just wait until government up and decides to find them all itself. So congratulations everybody, we found all of them! Well, the Government Accountability Office did.
Since the start of my project, one of my goals has been to find repeatable language for getting information about computer inventories from agencies. This report contains one very helpful step towards that goal: it brought the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996 to my attention.
[...] One of this report's key findings was that of all the money the Federal Government spends on their information systems, about 75% of that is spent on operations and maintenance (O&M) alone, with "5,233 of the government's approximately 7,000 IT investments [...] spending all of their funds on O&M activities." This means that there's less funding available for new investments or upgrades to existing ones. Instead, we're just spending all of our time making sure that what we already have works.
Also, the age of an investment isn't determined by hardware alone: neglecting software upgrades can also hold back the age of an investment. For this reason, the Department of Treasury's master tax record system is stuck in the mid–60's. While they've upgraded the hardware to more modern IBM mainframes, those mainframes are still running vintage assembly. When considering systems investments, this makes the Treasury's the oldest in the Federal government.
So, mission accomplished, right? We found the oldest computer! And it's the computers inside the IRS that makes sure everybody is paying their taxes! The Simpsons did it!
We did indeed find the oldest computer in government, but it's not really a computer at all; it's computer software. In some ways that's satisfying: old software needs just as much maintenance, expertise, and money to keep it running the machines correctly. It's also what's most exploitable, even if exploits written against custom assembly are unlikely. Anyway, the hardware can't run without the software. If this is the oldest hardware, then the machines running the nuclear defense system are the clear winners of the "oldest computer prize."
However, there remains a lot more research to be done. In particular, I'm starting to have a lot of questions about this tax software and the management around it. Why's it not been updated? Is anybody inside Treasury advocating for it to be updated? Does anyone care? What are the consequences of catastrophic systems failure within the IRS? And the perennial computing question: have they made backups?
This report also only covers the federal government. We have 50 states, some with HVAC systems run by Amigas.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tibman on Monday September 26 2016, @05:47AM
I think about it the same way. If a system designed in the 60's is still running then that is really good return on investment there.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @01:29PM
I think about it the same way. If a system designed in the 60's is still running then that is really good return on investment there.
Unless maintaining the old system - its hard to get parts, hard to find experienced engineers and/or programmers, etc - costs much more than replacing it.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Monday September 26 2016, @03:25PM
Hard to find whole subsystems, yeah. But old parts from the 70's-80's are crazy cheap now. Not talking about ebay either but sites like digikey. They could order them in lots of 100 and keep local stock. Unless they are replacing a part that has mystery firmware on it then everything should be easily fixed. Custom chips would be a problem too. But i've only seen those for video/sound generation. The real issue, imo, is that the government is only interested in hiring experienced engineers with degrees. Some hobbyist who rebuilds arcade machines from the 80's would be a better fit but they would NEVER make it through HR.
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(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Monday September 26 2016, @06:52PM
Kids with their toy cell phones that have to be replaced every year might think that. But these systems were usually built to last. Still, that is just one SMALL factor that has to be considered. Even if a hardware system needed some unobtanium part, it might still be vastly cheaper to have a new one manufactured than re-writing all the software for a new platform that puts everyone on an expensive upgrade treadmill.
So perhaps it turns out that no one has original business requirements, and even if someone did, the requirements and system have changed over the years and no one documented it. And no remaining human ever understands their own business requirements any more. - Think you can have that on your managers desk in 6 months for less than the cost of an unobtanium replacement part? You manager might believe that, but you are going to need a team of 10 people working for at least 6 years just on the core business illogic. And probably a team of a dozen expensive consultants to get it shoehorned in to whatever buzzword filled enterprise platform of the the day that management dictates.
"Hard to find experienced engineers and/or programmers, etc"? Sounds like a thing someone with an MBA would say. There is this nice thing called TRAINING. Any competent engineer or programmer could pick up most of these 60s/70s/80s software and hardware environments in no time. If you gave them a chance, which I know most managers are loath to do. Probably not golden brown enough for you either. An if it is not clear enough already, it is usually the business requirements that are the real bulk of the problem.