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posted by janrinok on Monday September 26 2016, @12:35AM   Printer-friendly

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.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @12:58AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @12:58AM (#406463)

    Is this why it takes the government like 8 years to figure out if you still owe them back taxes. Of course by then you will pay a ton of money in interest an penalties. While they could use that money to upgrade their systems I figure they think it's more profitable for them to just wait 5 years and then charge you more.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @01:17AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @01:17AM (#406475)

      Correct. Half-assed responses to half-assed data calls is why it takes so long. It's not hardware or software maintenance that consumes that O&M, it's beuracroacy. Some smart guy who thinks government workers time is better spent answering his questions than doing real work.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @09:22AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @09:22AM (#406584)

      I know that here you don't have to pay interest, unless you pay after the payment due date on the tax bill. On the other hand, you receive interest (better than banks give you) if the tax office is late with paying you. People have used this loop hole by sending extra money (which the tax office is obliged to send back) and receive interest on that extra money (unless send back on time).

      This keeps the tax office awake though, to timely handle the payments.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @01:13AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @01:13AM (#406472)

    To Turbo Tax 2016. Probably could get a deal on a site license too.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @01:26AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @01:26AM (#406481)

      Probably could get a deal on a site license too.

      Until you factor in the up charge for e-filing.

  • (Score: 2) by Snotnose on Monday September 26 2016, @01:24AM

    by Snotnose (1623) on Monday September 26 2016, @01:24AM (#406478)

    Company founded in the mid-80's. Engineers get new computers every 3 years, whether we want them or not. I'm gonna guess the oldest one in the company is running 0S/2, it's needed for some government test on a product sold 30 years ago. And yeah I've had to deal with it. I ran OS/2 in the early 90s, was good at it, and it fucking threw me for a loop 10 years ago (I do Windows and Unix, OS/2 ain't like them other things).

    So a for profit company can keep it's systems up to date, but a bloated bureaucracy (how old will I be before I can spell bureaucracy without spell check?) lets things get 40 years out of date, then bitches they're 40 years out of date and need millions of dollars to figure out the upgrade path?

    --
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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @03:40AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @03:40AM (#406521)

      No surprise, that. The private sector is always more efficient.

      • (Score: 2) by jelizondo on Monday September 26 2016, @05:30AM

        by jelizondo (653) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 26 2016, @05:30AM (#406542) Journal

        Really? I’ve seen plenty of industrial applications, particularly those in CNC applications, that still run DOS programs and can’t be changed because either the new software is very expensive or unavailable.

        I even had to install a Centronics-type parallel port in a brand new PC in order to make it work with an outdated but still useful machine. (Hint: Some weird stuff available in Poland and other ex-soviet countries can do wonders to keep old U.S. machines running.)

        Don’t get propaganda mixed with real world situations.

        • (Score: 4, Informative) by Hairyfeet on Monday September 26 2016, @05:49AM

          by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Monday September 26 2016, @05:49AM (#406548) Journal

          Same here in fact I built 3 Pentium 100Mhz DOS boxes (at a rather hefty profit) in 09 because a local lumber company has a very expensive CNC lathe that was required to fulfill a contract and the DOS 3 box that controlled it decided to lay down and die. Cost to replace the system with something newer? About $400k because this thing does incredibly detailed ornamental carving (think cherubs and oak leaves and all kinds of fine detail) but the company that made it went out of business in the late 80s so it only works with an ISA card (which they were smart enough to buy 5 so they have spares) plugged into a machine running DOS 3. Never seen someone so happy to just throw money at me but from what I gathered if they brought this job in on time the contractor had a huge contract waiting for them so I guess throwing me $500 a pop for 3 ancient boxes I had in storage was a good deal to them, especially since they had been to 2 other shops and been told it'd be at least 2 weeks and the contract was do in 4 days.

          So I can see why companies keep old systems, hell I have a customer that had me build him 2 NOS 1.8Ghz Athlon Win2K Pro boxes because he has nearly 9 grand worth of tools tied into Macromedia X-Res and when he sat down and did the math on how much it would take to replace with the equivalent Photoshop plugins plus the amount of time PS sucks up compared to doing the same job in X-Res? It was much cheaper for him to have me build him a couple X-Res boxes and slap on a KVM than it would cost to upgrade. And I hope everybody likes Win 7 because we are gonna see a LOT of Win 7 boxes after its EOL as so much hardware and software doesn't run worth a piss on 10, especially niche hardware like DAWs, laser cutters, plotters, etc. Sometimes the new shiny? Just isn't worth the expense.

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Monday September 26 2016, @01:29AM

    by frojack (1554) on Monday September 26 2016, @01:29AM (#406482) Journal

    Seems to me there are still some fire control computers on board Mothballed or "Memorial" Battle Ships dating from World War II era. These are mostly analog (mechanical) computers used to actually fire the main batteries (yes, THAT kind of fire control).

    Sailors, without radar, would use optical range finders to gage distance, dial that in, along with wind, heading, speed (of both the target and their own ship), the shell weight, propellant charge, and the computer would turn on a light when it had a "solution", and adjust the turret, and azimuth of the guns. The Gunner would pull an electric trigger, and then the computer would wait for the ship to come off off a swell peak our out of a trough, and electrically fire the turret guns.

    These date from pre-war. Most re replaced by better and smaller computers, but even those are far older than the 60s, and the old ones were dredged up and re-installed on at least one of the old battle ships now run by the Park Service.

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  • (Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday September 26 2016, @02:11AM

    by butthurt (6141) on Monday September 26 2016, @02:11AM (#406500) Journal

    There was a story about this GAO report when it came out in May: /article.pl?sid=16/05/26/142252 [soylentnews.org]

    Prior to the report, there was a story about the Strategic Automated Command and Control System and its 8-inch floppy drives:
    /article.pl?sid=14/04/29/1334235 [soylentnews.org]

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Monday September 26 2016, @03:36AM

    by SomeGuy (5632) on Monday September 26 2016, @03:36AM (#406520)

    Why's it not been updated?

    Before asking that, be sure to ask if it NEEDS updating. The answer may be no. Or not in any way that is cost beneficial. If a system works well enough, then what is so horrible about something remaining unchanged?

    But tell you what, lets re-write the entire thing in Java with a cell phone user interface, object orientation, the cloud, XML, HTML 5, webscale, and whatever other buzzwords you can pull out of your ass. Then when all of the employees have gone back to using pencil and paper because the fancy new doesn't actually WORK, then just blame it on the outsourced India-based programming company that wrote it.

    • (Score: 2) by jelizondo on Monday September 26 2016, @05:45AM

      by jelizondo (653) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 26 2016, @05:45AM (#406545) Journal

      I agree with you but sometimes getting new hardware makes life horrible for the people that have to support old software.

      More than 20 years ago I wrote I piece of software for a company and it was running, last I checked, until last year. It is at the same time my greatest pride (Been running for 20 years!) and shame (why the hell haven’t they got around re-writing it?).

      At the time I used some direct assembly to talk to the network adapter, which then seemed like a good idea to make the software faster but has been a source of hardship to the people having to support it over the years.

      For reasons not entirely known to me, the company has been unwilling to have the software rewritten and the support people have to resort to trying to make the old network adapter work on a new PC or entirely giving up and continue to use an old PC until it croaks, some time later, and then it becomes someone else's problem.

      Writing a piece of software is like having children, you can not anticipate how they´ll turn out or where they’ll end up.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by tibman on Monday September 26 2016, @05:47AM

      by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 26 2016, @05:47AM (#406547)

      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

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @01:29PM (#406630)

        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

          by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 26 2016, @03:25PM (#406671)

          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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          SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
        • (Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Monday September 26 2016, @06:52PM

          by SomeGuy (5632) on Monday September 26 2016, @06:52PM (#406715)

          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.

          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.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @03:03PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @03:03PM (#406666)

      Go on, upgrade to SAP like everyone else.
      500k per system for licence, db, support etc. Increase this as the system grows.

      SAP CRM is shit. Pouring custom government databases into SAP is insane.

  • (Score: 3, Touché) by jimtheowl on Monday September 26 2016, @02:47PM

    by jimtheowl (5929) on Monday September 26 2016, @02:47PM (#406661)
    Do you care to support that assertion, or rather, that assumption?