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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Intel is removing drivers and BIOS for its old desktop boards so anyone running an old Pentium-based PC has four days to get hold of anything they might need.
The warning on Intel's download center page says:
End Of Life - This download, BIOS Update [RL86510A.86A] P21, will no longer be available after November 22, 2019 and will not be supported with any additional functional, security, or other updates. All versions are provided as is. Intel recommends that users of BIOS Update [RL86510A.86A] P21 uninstall and/or discontinue use as soon as possible.
Opinion on message boards is mixed, with some accepting that a 20-year support cycle is not terrible. But others pointed out that some industries like manufacturing will still be relying on old hardware to run parts of their infrastructure.
Posters on Vogon, a forum dedicated to ancient hardware and emulators that allow you to run old games on newer machines, questioned the move and how much space and storage Intel would really save by the housekeeping measure.
Various people are setting up their own mirrors and using archive.org, but the maker community noted that file names are not always obvious and downloading from mirror sites can be risky.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday November 20 2019, @11:18PM
A quick R/L non-software issue.
We have an electrical switching box manufactured over 20 years ago by G.E. as part of a larger system that was, at that time, maintained by G.E. Changes happened, and G.E. was no longer being paid money to maintain the system which needed the switchbox. Other equipment was put in after that box.
Someone came in and did some electrical maintenance for us and it fried a very expensive part inside that box. We managed to get ahold of a genuine G.E. replacement part for the fried component. We tested all other components in that system and determined they were all good - just the one part fried. The company who fried the part (by shorting together two wires that should never have been connected but they thought they knew what those leads did) raised an extreme objection that we were endangering the system by replacing the part.
Sooo..... we tackled the hierarchy at G.E. And managed to speak with the engineering office that still had maintenance authority for the plans for that box. They hadn't been asked a question about these schematics for those plans in five years because that model of box was retired soon after we purchased our installation.... but they still had installations using that box under maintenance. The engineer with oversight responsibility for that box was responsible for periodically re-certifying that the plans were accurate and suitable for applications fitting the required specs. That engineer certified to us, given all the conditions we gave him about our testing and our best suspicions about what happened that installing the replacement part would create no additional hazards. All of that consultation happened to us at no charge, and while G.E. owed us nothing they still took responsibility for the basic workmanship of the twenty year old switchbox and its circuitry. (Although we billed the person who shorted the wires for the replacement part cost).
That was about ten years ago, and that box is still in place doing its job today. I'm sure, if it hasn't already happened, that G.E. will make a cost decision eventually that all remaining installations of that box will need to upgrade or lose their maintenance, those plans will be jettisoned, and the engineering office I spoke with will no longer have responsibility to answer silly questions like ours.
So the point of this is.... point... point? No, I guess I just liked that story. :)
Oh, and sometimes there are internal cost charges to keeping stuff around beyond just a scant amount of power and hard drive space. And PHB's too, granted.
This sig for rent.