Do you think that in the West everything is the most advanced, and especially electronics? No matter how it is! There are also enough computer "dinosaurs" there. NASA uses processors from 2002, New York's subway is controlled by 1930s technology, and the first IBMs are still in the US Army.
Here's a look at these examples:
Retro-fast and furious McLaren F1
Handsome McLaren F1! The world's fastest mass-produced car with a naturally aspirated engine. The dream of any boy and the favorite car of Rowan Atkinson, the star of "Mr. Bean". The maximum speed is 392 km / h, and accelerates to hundreds in a ridiculous 3.2 seconds. Terribly expensive: only 100 copies were released, and today they ask for $ 10-15 million for each. If Batman existed, he would probably have driven it in F1. And what could be wrong with this amazing hypercar?
The ultra-tech McLaren F1 was produced from 1992 to 1998 and was equipped with top-end hardware at that time. But time goes by, technologies become obsolete. To service this car now, you need not just battalions of retro mechanics, but also a prehistoric Compaq LTE 5280 laptop running MS-DOS. Only through it can you connect to the conditional access card - the interface between the laptop software and the car. True, this was until recently: last year, engineers did learn to emulate LTE 5280 software on Windows. They now use modern laptops. But the old ones are kept - just in case.
Promotional video:
The wonders of the New York subway
However, supercars are far from public transport. This is especially true for the metro. The New York subway is on fire - some of the equipment has not been updated for almost a century. The train control system has served faithfully since the 1930s. The dispatchers use massive boards with lamp indicators and manually operate the arrows and signals that tell the machine operators which section of the track to take. All entries are kept in a regular journal. By hand.
Decrepit hardware leads to problems. When something breaks, the management turns to their own repair shop, because outdated parts have not been sold in stores for a long time. And the fixed block of the antediluvian system displays the distance at a ridiculous 304 meters and shows only the location of the train. Nothing more: no speed readings or wagon load data. For some time now, the subway has been improved, but so far only one line has been updated. It took six years and $ 288 million. So, before the complete modernization of the metro, it is even before the moon.
Reliability from NASA
Remember the jokes popular at the beginning of the century in the style of "you need a NASA computer to run this game"? Who would have thought that astronauts would somehow get stuck in those 2000s? Take, for example, the Orion ship, designed to conquer Mars. First launched into space five years ago, Honeywell International Inc. acts as the onboard computer of this colossus. Initially, the computer complex was designed for Boeing 787 aircraft.
You don't have to google - we say right away: the device, to put it mildly, is outdated. The computer runs on a single-core IBM PowerPC 750FX processor, which was released in 2002. According to representatives of NASA, this antiquity is used because of its reliability and resistance to radiation. There are three such models on board the Orion. According to employees of the department, the probability of failure of the entire clip is no more than 1 in 1,870,000. Not bad for equipment that is inferior in power to a budget smartphone, isn't it?
You probably did not miss the messages in the media, where it was reported that a rarity was found on the ISS, namely the old 3.5 diskettes. The current commander of the International Space Station (ISS) crew, German astronaut Alexander Gerst, found a cabinet on the ISS, which probably did not open for a long time, and there were such floppy disks.
I still remember very well how they were a "miracle" after 5.25 (I have not seen an even larger format), and even their gigantic volume of 1.4 MB, after 512 KB seemed to be something bottomless.
Let me remind you that on November 20, 1998, Russia launched the first element of the ISS into orbit. So where were these floppy disks inserted on the space station?
Because Alexander posted photos of these finds on Twitter, then users were able to attribute almost all floppy disks in a few hours.
For example, on two floppy disks with the inscriptions Crew Personal Support Data Disk, the names Sergey and Shep are large printed. Most likely, these diskettes belonged to Sergei Krikalev and William Shepard, members of the very first ISS prime crew, which left for the station at the end of October 2000.
Another floppy disk says Norton's Utilities for Windows 95/98 Version 4.0 - this artifact dates back to the days of DOS, when Norton's utilities for formatting and checking disks, recovering accidentally deleted files were indispensable. They were used after the introduction of Windows. On one floppy disk, users saw the logo of Power Computing, which produced clones of "poppies" in the 1990s, and, judging by the inscription, it contains software developed by Adaptec, presumably for managing RAID arrays.
In a sense, the ISS itself is turning into a klondike of technological archeology for natural reasons: firstly, only knowingly reliable, proven equipment is sent on board, which means that it is already somewhat behind the front of technological progress. On the other hand, it is rather difficult to throw something off the ISS - cargo ships, which have a rather limited capacity, are loaded with garbage. Therefore, quite a lot of equipment from previous generations remains on the ISS. For example, on the Russian segment there are long-discontinued Sony PMW-EX1R camcorders and old cameras.
Now a little about where the floppy disks found by Gerst were actually inserted. The designers of the station at one time decided not to make separate interfaces for controlling the ISS systems, all control is carried out through laptops. There are about 80 of them on the ISS, most of them are Lenovo T61P, but some are old Lenovo A31p Thinkpads with Pentium 4 processors.
Directly to control the station systems, seven laptops are used in the American segment (denoted by the abbreviation PCS - Portable Computer System, it is on one of the floppy disks), seven more in Russian, eight laptops are used to control the systems of the Japanese module Kibo, two more - by the European module. They run Linux, and they provide access to all 1553 systems of the ISS.
About a dozen more computers are used to manage payloads and experiments. The rest of the laptops run Windows - they are used for teleconferencing, for cataloging station property, correspondence, keeping records, and in order to post something on Twitter.
The first laptops on the ISS (they were most likely used by Krikalev and Shepard) were the IBM ThinkPad 760XD, which were specially modified for use in space. Velcro was glued to the case of these laptops so that they were securely attached to the workplace, their power adapters were changed so that they could work from the on-board network (DC 28 volts on shuttles and SpaceHab modules), in addition, they had a modified cooling system adapted for zero gravity. They were equipped with Pentium MMX processors with a frequency of 166 megahertz; an RS-232 interface was used to connect to the onboard computer network. And yes, those computers had an external 3-inch floppy drive.
Rockets on floppy disks
Well, the US Army is fine, right? Not really. A couple of years ago, the Accounts Chamber published a report from which it followed: IBM computers of the first series are used in the control system for intercontinental ballistic missiles, strategic bombers and refueling aircraft. This is such a giant half-room bandura, developed back in the rogue 70s and shamelessly outdated already in the neon 80s. The legendary 8-inch floppy disks are used as the storage medium for these fossils. The ones that young people associate exclusively with the save icon.
The US Department of Defense explains this outrage by the lack of funds for new expensive equipment and, again, reliability. Since the scheme is utterly outdated, it is almost impossible to hack it: even if hackers are beating their heads against the wall, they will still not be able to remotely launch rockets. However, there is a downside. Information can disappear at any time: magnetic floppy disks tend to lose charge, and with it data. But this does not bother the warrior at all, they are in no hurry to write off the good old "cabinets" for scrap.
The US Audit Office released a report saying the Pentagon's Strategic Missile Forces still use a 1970s computer system and 8-inch floppy disks, the BBC reported.
$ 61 billion is spent annually on maintaining obsolete technologies, which is three times more than is invested in modern IT systems.
The report specifically mentions that the Department of Defense of the United States Department of Defense responsible for coordinating intercontinental nuclear missiles, nuclear bombers and aerial refueling aircraft operates on the IBM Series-1 Computer, a computer created in the 1970s and using 8-inch.
Pentagon spokesman Valerie Henderson told AFP that such a system is still in use today because it is still capable of functioning.
According to the Accounts Chamber, a programming language developed in the 50s is used to operate computers. The Pentagon plans to completely update the computer system by 2020.
Soldiers' grief and spy passions
The US military is, in principle, no stranger to prehistoric technology. Soldiers are paid with vintage MS-DOS computers. Once the Reuters agency conducted a whole investigation and was horrified: the poor fellows are periodically cheated insolently, but without malicious intent - the ancient pieces of iron simply glitch and malfunction. With veterans it is even sadder: the network of specialized hospitals uses the VistA system, also based on MS-DOS. It is controlled through the command line with pre-written values. Because of this, doctors are forced to perform dozens of unnecessary manipulations in order to complete the simplest task. Maybe the old warriors are so motivated not to go to the doctor again?
It's not easy for the US Secret Service either. According to former Senator Joe Lieberman, they use an archaic mainframe. In the 80s it was made by IBM, the thing is capable of processing only 42 actions at a time. True, unlike the ultra-reliable Orion on-board computer, this relic works only in 60% of cases - the rest of the time they prefer not to overheat. When the truth surfaced, the secret services promised to replace the old ones with new models. Did you keep your word? Who knows. Good agents don't reveal secrets.
Copyright protection with sword and halberd
Successful artists in the West feel at ease - millions of dollars, yachts, villas. Not life, but a fairy tale. At least until it comes to protecting intellectual property. Any American content maker who wants to protect their creations from the encroachment of plagiarists must go through the real hell - the US Copyright Office. Whatever the creator does, you will have to submit an application on the oldest carriers - the equipment there reads only them.
Did you write a cool newspaper article? Please bring the microfiche to the department. This is an ancient gizmo for screen readers. She often appears in Hollywood films when the characters are looking for old publications in the city archives. Did you make a movie or a music video? Be aware that the bureau only accepts videotapes. And not even VHS, but Betamax fossils. Worse, all documentation is on paper - if you need to find something, you have to dig in old catalogs and climb dusty shelves.
Tax monster - what is dead cannot die
They say death is inevitable. But not everywhere - for example, a number of software systems of the Internal Tax Service will not die out. But it's high time - some have been in use since John F. Kennedy and written in 1959 COBOL. To make the software somehow work, it is regularly patched - in the end, it turns out to be something like a Frankenstein monster. However, the state tax authorities are in no hurry to replace the bogeyman, even though they receive $ 2 billion every year for technology development.
Another problem with money is the ill-fated ATM machines. And this concerns not only the West, but the whole world. Until recently, 95% of the cash closets were running Windows XP. And only when Microsoft announced the end of support for the OS in 2014, banks thought about possible security holes and began to transfer machines to Windows 7. The process is slow - in the same India they plan to get rid of XP completely only this year. There are several reasons, but the main one is that the old ATMs do not handle the current "sevens" and "tens".
And changing the iron is long and expensive.