Emulation or the real thing?

From: John Foust <jfoust_at_threedee.com>
Date: Wed Oct 21 14:24:36 1998

At 12:14 PM 10/21/98 -0700, Sam Ismail wrote:
>
>So, believe it or not my naive young man, people are dumb enough to lose
>the source code.

Who you calling "young man"? :-) I'm 35 and learned BASIC on an ASR-33
when I was twelve, and have been supporting myself on my programmer
earnings since the summer I turned 18.

I certainly know the source code gets lost. I'm appalled at how much
code gets written, and then is lost, which might explain the tubs of
floppies and 8mm tapes that I use for decoration in my office.

What I don't believe are these claims that the heart of the Y2K
problem are thousands of businesses running apps as old as I am,
that haven't had to change, or that can't be changed. How many
serious businesses are still running the same unchanged sourceless
app since 1978, much less 1968 or 1958?

- John
Received on Wed Oct 21 1998 - 14:24:36 BST