Emulation or the real thing?

From: Allison J Parent <allisonp_at_world.std.com>
Date: Wed Oct 21 22:16:56 1998

< John Foust <jfoust_at_threedee.com> wrote:
< > This reminds me of a claim I hear in Y2K discussions, but can hardly
< > believe: that businesses are running the same *executables* since
< > the 1950s/60s/70s, and that they don't have the source code to fix it.
< > Sure, they might not have the source to the OS, but their own apps?

Actually this is more common that you'd think. Many cases the
company didn't write the code, they contracted for it or it's
a canned application. In most of those cases they never had
the source! Then the people that had the source go out of business
and the code is effectively lost.

I worked for a company that had to sue to get the source for an app they
used for some 5 years so they could fix a bug! The bug was that RSTS-11
upgrade cased the app to crash. They needed the upgrade to keep the
hardware and OS service contract alive on an 11/34 that ran the place.


Allison
Received on Wed Oct 21 1998 - 22:16:56 BST