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posted by on Monday February 15 2016, @04:54PM   Printer-friendly
from the exemplary-mtbf dept.

The can of worms we opened when we learned of the server switched off after eighteen years and ten months' service is still wriggling, as a reader has contacted us to tell of nearly 30-year-old laptops still in service.

Reader "Holrum" says he has "a couple dozen Toshiba T1000 laptops from the mid [1980s] still fully functional (including floppy drives)".

The T1000 was introduced in 1987. [...] The machine was one of the very first computers to use a clamshell form factor. [...] It also offered a rather archaic LCD display, as illustrated.

[...]The machine ran MS-DOS 2.11 on a ROM [and] came with a colossal 512kB of RAM [...] and a single 3.5-inch floppy drive.

Holrum says the T1000s are taken offline every few years for just the few minutes required to replace the NiCad batteries and give them a clean before they are returned to duty as process monitoring terminals.

Previous: Beat This: Server Retired After 18 Years and 10 Months


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by PinkyGigglebrain on Monday February 15 2016, @06:27PM

    by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Monday February 15 2016, @06:27PM (#304799)

    As they say "If it ain't broke don't fix it."
     
    While I totally agree with you about the energy savings that could be achieved by replacing the Toshibas with something modern with lower power requirements you also have to consider various things that might make replacing them more trouble than it would be worth.
     
    They probably have some kind of custom application code that would have to be ported and there might also be an Interface to external hardware that is not be supported anymore, or have been custom designed in the first place, which would need to be updated. Possibly they would need to reverse engineer everything because no one has the original source code or schematics anymore. And when you consider the cost of doing all that keeping the little power hungry dinosaurs on line might be way cheaper.
     
    Unless of course your volunteering to do the upgrade for free. :)

    --
    "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Francis on Monday February 15 2016, @07:22PM

    by Francis (5544) on Monday February 15 2016, @07:22PM (#304824)

    At some point the machine will die you're probably already way out on the long tail as it is and if something breaks, it's going offline and you might not be able to get a replacement part. Assuming that the part that goes out doesn't destroy the rest of the machine when it goes.

    When I hear somebody bragging about their server being in use for decades, I wonder about how short sighted that is because you're going to be migrating at some point and luck is not a strategy.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by PinkyGigglebrain on Monday February 15 2016, @08:30PM

      by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Monday February 15 2016, @08:30PM (#304851)

      your totally right, they are going to fail someday. And the cost of replacing the laptops, and possibly everything connected to them since it probably won't work with modern hardware or MCUs, is going to be very steep. While I would hope that management has some kind of replacement plan in place I doubt it. Don't forget that management tends to put off any upgrade or repair that isn't critical to their email working till next year, and then they put it off again, and repeat until they have to do something.
       
      These laptops are not being used as servers, sounds more like they are some kind of control/monitoring system that is not very hardware intensive and may not even be mission critical. The case might not be "we don't want to spend money upgrading" but more a "we don't want to spend the money to rip the redundant and obsolete stuff out". If the environment they are in has allowed them to work this long it might allow them to work another 30. Hells, I've seen control systems from the 1960s using the original relays that are still running,
       
      When someone talks about their servers I tend to agree with you, but its hard to know what this scenario is without more info.

      --
      "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
    • (Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Monday February 15 2016, @09:58PM

      by SomeGuy (5632) on Monday February 15 2016, @09:58PM (#304893)

      There is always a risk, even with something completely new. How do you know the manufacturer of your brand new shiny won't run themselves in to the ground tomorrow, rendering it more or less a useless brick? It happens.

      If they have kept an unsupported (not necessarily even old) piece of equipment running with no spares parts, no failover, no one knowledgeable in the system, no emergency migration plan, or no one else to call, then they are asking for big trouble.

      On the other hand if they take the responsibility themselves to do all of that and periodically re-evaluate the cost vs benefit of moving to something completely different, then such risks can easily be minimized.

      • (Score: 1) by Francis on Monday February 15 2016, @10:27PM

        by Francis (5544) on Monday February 15 2016, @10:27PM (#304908)

        That's why you do burn in tests on them and avoid buying proprietary crap when you can avoid doing so.

    • (Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday February 16 2016, @07:07AM

      by anubi (2828) on Tuesday February 16 2016, @07:07AM (#305082) Journal

      Judging by the failure rate of the machines I have been supporting, I have more than ample spare parts to fix whatever broke, and I know where to get more.

      The rate of failures I am seeing leads me to believe the machines will be running far longer than I will be running, providing someone doesn't like the way they look and trash 'em.

      It does not require a super computer to drill a hole in a piece of metal at a certain place one after another 24 hours a day. Having access to a skilled machinist to make spare parts for the robot is a lot more critical. I could probably get anything I need right out of damn near any electronic scrap pile.

      --
      "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]