I feel like Nibby

[e90m3]

Been trying to get a machine running this

to work all week.

[Roundbadge]

@e90m3 Someone called from one of our manufacturing facilities yesterday, asking for us to send them, specifically, a PS2 mouse...

[e90m3]

@roundbadge Got a bunch of those around here somewhere. A lot of our shit is old.

[Tripper]

@e90m3 Hah! I worked for a failing payroll company circa 2010 that still had an 0S2 machine controlling their COBOL MAINFRAME! The last inspection date on the large power center was in 1979

[facw]

Oh man, did I hate working on 4.0. So much more pleasant when we finally started adopting Windows 2000 (though by then I wasn't working desktop support anymore, and had been using 2000 on my personal machine for quite a while, I may even have moved on to XP by the time 2000 was validated at work).

[Roundbadge]

@e90m3 We only got rid of our Data General terminals in like 2008.

My other favorite was when a location wanted a PC with Windows 95 installed in order to run their old plotter. The plotter wouldn't work with any HP jetdirect printservers, had to be plugged in with a serial cable to a Windows 95 PC. I shouldn't have audibly laughed on the call...I know that now...but at least my bosses backed me up.

[e90m3]

@tripper My mom studied computer science in college (~1980) and that is one language she's mentioned before. IT amazes me how some companies, including mine, are content to run very obsoleted systems forever.

[Roundbadge]

@tripper We bought a 'new' location around 2014 I think, and my boss wanted me to go out and look at their phone system. When I got there, I found an Avaya Partner, which was the same as what we were running at the corporate office. What I didn't expect, though, was that they had an old OS2 machine running their voicemail. Just chugging along, like it had no idea it was over 20 years old...

I tried learning COBOL some years ago. Not very hard, but I tried...

[Tripper]

@e90m3 Lol yep, when I talk to older folks in "the biz" they're like "How TF does a guy your age know anything about mainframe/cobol!?"

[Tripper]

@roundbadge said in I feel like Nibby:

@tripper We bought a 'new' location around 2014 I think, and my boss wanted me to go out and look at their phone system. When I got there, I found an Avaya Partner, which was the same as what we were running at the corporate office. What I didn't expect, though, was that they had an old OS2 machine running their voicemail. Just chugging along, like it had no idea it was over 20 years old...

I tried learning COBOL some years ago. Not very hard, but I tried...

There is a niche market for COBOL pros these days. We flew a guy up to south jersey from south carolina for weeks at a time, put him up and paid him $300/hour. He helped port the Mainframe over to VMware and yours truly got to look over his shoulder and help out. Seriously amazing experience at a seriously terrible job.

[Roundbadge]

@tripper My attempt to learn came at a time when the world was gearing up for Y2K. The professor told us, "There's good money to be made fixing all these old programs that are going to be hit by the Y2K bug in a couple of years."

I think that was the semester I got suspended. College wasn't really for me.

[Tripper]

@roundbadge Hahaha yes there were Y2K books and software all over this office too. I just smelled like panic at this place. School of any kind has never been for me.

[e90m3]

@roundbadge What you get suspended for?

I came extremely close to getting suspended for underage drinking. Luckily, they gave me suspension held in abeyance, which was good because that was the semester after I failed out and was back in school on a technicality and was passing all my classes.

[ClassicDatsunDebate]

@e90m3 oh man, So much heritage equipment runs NT, which is ironic because it’s such a turd compared to 98/2000 at the time. We even still have a virtual NT environment to run a bunch of backend databases and a bar code reader for work order travellers.
Man if I could have back all the time I wasted trying to configure scsi drives, tape backups, modems to work on NT.....good luck.

[Chariotoflove]

@e90m3 Please explain the nature of the box I'm seeing. I see a standard incubator control, but with a monitor embedded in it?

[VincentMalamute]

@chariotoflove said in I feel like Nibby:

I see a standard incubator control,

Your incubators have knives?!

[Chariotoflove]

@vincentmalamute said in I feel like Nibby:

@chariotoflove said in I feel like Nibby:

I see a standard incubator control,

Your incubators have knives?!

LOL! You jest, but yes, in fact I have one that does. It's called a cryostat, and it has a very big, very sharp knife in it, cooled to about -20C, for slicing tissue blocks. The control I see here, however, looks like a simpler controller that I'd find on a bacterial incubator or an oven.

[Highlander]

@e90m3 NT is pretty fucking solid tho.

[VincentMalamute]

@Chariotoflove Figures. Every time I think I know something, there's a world of knowledge I'm only scratching at. I'm surprised a tissue block slicer has a big knife, regardless of sharpness. For some reason cryostat is a familiar word - maybe we had one when I worked in a biology lab in college.

Looks like I'm way off - I was guessing a foam cutter. The environment looks industrial to me. Kinda dirty.

[e90m3]

@chariotoflove It's an older version of this:

It's a chopping machine for ceramic capacitors.

[e90m3]

@highlander Until it's completely locked down.

[Highlander]

@e90m3 I'm guessing they just haven't upgraded the HMI with a new OS probably because they don't want to pay for the newest version of the manufacturing software or have it custom written for this application.

[Chariotoflove]

@e90m3 said in I feel like Nibby:

It's a chopping machine for ceramic capacitors.

Cool. That explains the legacy OS. I have a similar OS situation on one of our imaging boxes. IT won't support Win XP anymore. NT is positively Neolithic though. Maybe you do need Nibby.

[Chariotoflove]

@vincentmalamute said in I feel like Nibby:

@Chariotoflove Figures. Every time I think I know something, there's a world of knowledge I'm only scratching at. I'm surprised a tissue block slicer has a big knife, regardless of sharpness. For some reason cryostat is a familiar word - maybe we had one when I worked in a biology lab in college.

Looks like I'm way off - I was guessing a foam cutter. The environment looks industrial to me. Kinda dirty.

This may kinda interest you then. Here is a pic of a microtome with big-ass knife installed. We use it to cut tissues embedded in paraffin to put on slides, usually 5 micron sections. The cryostat is a microtome in a cold box. Instead of wax, the tissues are embedded in a frozen mounting medium.

[VincentMalamute]

@Chariotoflove That's dredging up vague memories. For a few years, I worked in a Rheumatology lab at the U of Chicago while trying to figure out college. Almost 40 years ago! I helped grow cells (some were the infamous HeLa line) and other technologist college student level stuff. I remember centrifuges and paper chromatography. Your photos seem vaguely familiar but we weren't doing tissue blocks, mainly cell cultures I think. I have a lousy memory and have forgotten all of this. Thanks!